The national Delivering a Net Zero NHS report was published in October 2020 by NHS England and highlights the areas of focus for reducing carbon emissions across the NHS.
The report committed to the following carbon targets:
- net zero by 2040 for the emissions we control directly (the 'NHS Carbon Footprint'), with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2028 to 2032
- net zero by 2045 for the emissions we can influence (our 'NHS Carbon Footprint Plus'), with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2036 to 2039.
Trust Carbon Footprint
As outlined in the Trust Sustainability Strategy, we have a target to reduce our 'NHS Carbon Footprint' (the area in the white box on the above infographic) by 50% by 2025. This is a very ambitious target.
Since publishing our strategy, the team have worked to refine our Trust carbon footprint, working with a company called Smart Carbon and bringing it inline with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Put simply, this means it follows the Government recommended method and is comparable to other public and private sector organisations' footprints.
As of 2021/22 the Trust has achieved a 10.6% reduction from the 2013/14 baseline year. This is progress but still lots of work to do to meet our Trust target of 50% reduction by 2025.
This pie chart shows the proportion of each of the elements making up our 'NHS Carbon Footprint' in 2021/22. Fossil fuels (gas and oil) is clearly the most significant part of our footprint and a reduction in its use will be essential if we are to meet our carbon targets.
Smart Carbon also enables us to more accurate measure our carbon footprint from procurement, which falls into our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus. This is done by pulling through data from our supplier's actual carbon footprint, rather than just basing it on spend against a particular industry. Whilst our 50% reduction target doesn't apply to our procurement emissions, it is important we still seek to address these given the size of our supply chain.
More information on our work with the procurement team and our suppliers can be found on our Social Value page.