The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, is one of the largest organisations in Europe and indeed the world. It therefore has a significant ecological footprint. As a result there are key corporate, financial and environmental targets that the organisation is expected to meet as a means of reducing resource consumption. Using a case study approach, this manuscript examines best practice examples for the uptake of low-carbon strategies for energy conservation. These strategies included sustainable procurement, use of renewable energy technologies, supply chain management, use of building management systems, renegotiating energy contracts, undertaking energy audits, and behaviour change, to realise significant financial, as well as energy and carbon savings. A key focus was management of water resources, including the use of recycling and recovery of heat. The implications of the findings for building ecological and financial resilience within the organisation are also discussed.
Aims: As one of the biggest organisations in the world, the NHS in England can contribute considerably to the United Nations' Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to optimise this, this study evaluated and reconceptualised a sustainable development assessment tool for health and care settings in England.
Methods:A quantitative survey and user/expert discussion panels were conducted to evaluate and reconceptualise the existing sustainable development assessment tool used by the NHS in England, the so-called 'Good Corporate Citizenship Assessment Tool ', between 2007 and 2016 including potential improvements such as the integration of the UN SDGs. Furthermore, the tool could be adapted to other public service providers.Keywords: sustainable development, tool, self-assessment, health and care, UN Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, NHS
IntroductionThe NHS in England is one of the biggest organisations in the world. For instance, it spent £120.5 billion in 2016/17. With over 1.3 million staff it attends to the health and care needs of, on average, over 1 million patients every 36 hours, from over 7,000 premises.1 It is faced with a huge range of challenges and opportunities if it is to deliver this activity in a progressively sustainable manner, and achieve a wide range of health, social, economic and environmental benefits. 2 This situation is made ever more challenging by the need to meet the rising demands on its services due to increases in population and life expectancy, and the financial challenges that the service faces.
3Successive UK governments have implemented a number of statutory, policy and strategy initiatives 4,5 that require the NHS, and public sector organisations in general, to build on the sustainable development opportunity. Publically available data shows why there is an urgent need for action. Energy spend is approximately £570m per annum. 6 The volume of water used by NHS
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