We have delivered several projects over the last two years to reduce our environmental impact that
contribute to the organisation’s decarbonisation, circular and foundational economy agenda. A summary of these successes and achievements are set out below:
We have continued to rationalise the estate, supporting staff to work differently in line with our Work How it works Best policy. This has reduced our carbon footprint by 60 tonnes CO2e a year. During these projects circular economy principles have been applied and included the donating of furniture to communities and diverting waste from landfill. We have also modernised our Wrexham office and established two new Screening Hubs, upholding the principles of bringing health to the high street and supporting local communities. Facilities such as showers and bike racks have also been installed to support active travel. In addition to this the organisation achieved ISO 140001 accreditation in May 2023 covering our three main sites.
In November 2023, our Abdominal Aortic Screening (AAA) Screening Fleet was replaced with hybrid and electric vehicles. Plans are also under development for the replacement of the existing fleet within Diabetic Eye Screening Wales (DESW), scheduled for replacement over the next two years.
We have supported and enabled staff to work from home reducing the need to commute daily. Staff are encouraged to consider impact on the environment when deciding how they travel to/from work and the cycle to work scheme has been promoted to staff as well as Healthy travel champions identified.In December 2022 we achieved the Cardiff Healthy Travel Charter commitments and work is continuing to develop charters for other parts of Wales.
The work of our Health and Sustainability Hub has continued to encourage and support behavioural change to benefit the health and wellbeing of our staff, partners and wider community. We have developed a Sustainable Travel Toolkit as part of the Work How it Works Best initiative. A survey to understand how staff travel to and for work is also currently being undertaken, the results of which will be used to support staff to make healthier and more sustainable travel choices.
The Health and Sustainability Hub has also secured funding to take forward a research project to look at reducing single use plastics, high waste streams, PPE and associated emissions within our microbiology laboratories. This research will inform the action we will take over the next two years.
Working with Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales, we have developed the Sustainability Improvement for Teams ‘SIFT’ Healthy Environment Workshop. This two-hour virtual workshop enables workplace teams and individuals to identify and reduce their environmental impacts. We have continued to work towards our target of 20% of teams using the workshop each year and this was supported through three train the facilitator workshops that took place during October to December 2023.
To support our internal decarbonisation actions, we have created a staff network to support sustainable development. Our Green Advocates network has continued to grow and provides informal quarterly lunchtime sessions to enable discussion, learning, and action at team and individual level. We have also developed various e-guides and resources to support staff to embed sustainable behaviour, to help reduce their emissions in work and at home. This includes the ‘Be the Change Sustainable Home and Agile Working’ e-guide and the ‘Well-being Goals Challenge’.
Group established in 2023. Key achievements include:
As ‘champions of education’, we invited staff from across NHS Wales to attend ‘Call to Action’ online
workshops in 2022. These online workshops were designed to help identify actions to reduce our impact on Climate Change to support the transition to a healthy, low carbon Welsh NHS. We are also developing our training offer, which has included Carbon Literacy sessions, with over 100 staff participating in the last two years. The Hub has also published an infographic to support staff to take actions to reduce their own carbon footprint and a film highlighting what staff are already doing to take action on climate change.
We launched the Greener Primary Care Wales Framework and Award Scheme in June 2022. It has been designed to support primary care contractors in Wales (general practice, community pharmacy, community optometry and primary care dental) implement mitigation and adaptation environmentally friendly actions.
Consisting of over 50 clinical and non-clinical actions, the Scheme helps practices consider how they can be more environmentally sustainable in where they work, how they work and how they influence others, especially patients and the public, with regard to climate change.
We are also working across the system and with partners across Wales and the UK to provide leadership and help NHS Wales tackle specific priority areas identified in the NHS Wales Decarbonisation Strategic Delivery Plan. Examples include education by increasing the knowledge amongst the primary care workforce on climate change; healthcare and medicines management through addressing key areas of medicines management particularly the high global warming potential of inhalers and through tackling pharmaceutical waste and specifically exploring inhaler recycling waste schemes