NHS carbon cutting mainly local

Most NHS initiatives to reduce the public service's carbon emissions and energy consumption have been carried out on a local level, reports the Health Services Journal (HSJ).

A new economics foundation (Nef) report last year revealed the NHS spends £400 million on energy bills and emits one million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, figures which a recent draft reduction strategy seeks to reduce.

Saving Carbon, Improving Health, the first publication by the NHS Sustainable Development Unit, sets out a target of reducing NHS carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

However, the HSJ notes about half (207) of the UK's NHS trusts have signed up for the Sustainable Development Commission's "good corporate citizen" scheme, which includes sustainability.

On the carbon front, only 28 trusts are working with the Carbon Trust on carbon management.

As the HSJ reports, there are trusts which are making big strides to cut emissions and energy use.

Three Cornish trusts now procure food from Cornish suppliers, instead of sourcing sandwiches from as far away as Oxford – the Nef report noted that five per cent of all UK's road transport emissions were NHS related.

West Hertfordshire hospitals have planned a sustainable health campus, which will pipe rainwater collected from the roof to water the pitch of nearby Watford football club.