FEATURE ARTICLES
UPDATED ROADMAP TOWARDS ‘NET ZERO’ – A THREE-STAGE APPROACH TO DECARBONISING NHS ESTATES CEF Stephen Lowndes On 14 April IHEEM held a webinar in conjunction with the Carbon and Energy Fund (CEF) and HEFMA to discuss the updated version of A Healthcare Engineering Roadmap for Delivering Net Zero document. Authored by experts at the Carbon and Energy Fund, and with its development supported by both IHEEM and HEFMA, the new guide, which will evolve further over time, seeks to assist NHS Trusts to meet the Net Zero carbon targets set out in the NHS strategy Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service, published last October. Here Stephen Lowndes, Technical Director at the CEF, takes a look at the context within which it has been developed and published, and highlights some of the key actions required.
The comprehensive new guide, A Healthcare Engineering Roadmap for Delivering Net Zero (accessible online at https:// www.iheem.org.uk/a-healthcare-engineering-roadmapfor-delivering-net-zero-carbon/) is intended to build on previous work, and sets out a clear three-staged approach to decarbonising NHS estates. It has been developed and reviewed by experts from across industry and the NHS, draws on real NHS project experience, reviews emerging and future technologies, and explores how Trusts can develop strategies that decarbonise now, while simultaneously preparing for future innovation. In this article I will explain the extent of the challenges that NHS Trusts face to meet the net zero targets set for the service, and some of the key issues they will need to consider address along the journey.
Delivering Net Zero health estate infrastructure requires change at pace Health estates managers are used to delivering the seemingly impossible in minimum time frames against challenging budgetary restraints, but we are now faced with what must surely be one of the biggest challenges we will all have to face in the coming years – the urgent need to adopt progressive decarbonisation of our hospital energy infrastructure. As part of establishing the extent of this challenge in the UK, the NHS published its Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service paper in October last year. This document heralds the determination of delivering net zero NHS carbon emissions
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by 2040, based upon a 1990 emissions baseline. This is 10 years ahead of the UK Government’s own 2050 net zero target objective, and, furthermore, the NHS paper set out that 80% of the net zero target would be delivered by 2028 to 2032. Again, this is far more ambitious than the UK Government’s target for at least a 68% reduction in UK total greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade. It potentially means that in order to meet these target objectives, very significant changes to the delivery of energy infrastructure and associated activities within the NHS are inevitable, and will have to happen at pace.
Health service footprints The targets in the NHS paper are based upon reducing the carbon emissions from activities represented within the NHS Carbon Footprint. This footprint can be applied to most health service organisations, and primarily consists of energy used within buildings, energy used from health service-owned and operated vehicles, water consumption, and refuse and waste treatment, as well as emissions associated with medical treatment procedures. There is also an aspiration to affect the wider health service carbon footprint that includes upstream and downstream emissions, such as medical devices, business services, construction, food and catering, and manufacturing of products and services used in a hospital or the organisational supply chain. The NHS paper calls this the ‘NHS Carbon Footprint Plus’.
