The Green Plan

We will utilise digital technology and systems to improve our service delivery and use of resources. 

The Trust has: 

• Made a huge investment to support agile working, which reduces carbon emissions from staff travel. 
• Implemented an electronic prescription service, which reduces the use of paper. 
• Trialled e-sims in new mobile phones, which lead to a reduction in sim cards. 

Buildings, energy and heat

We will reduce carbon emissions from our buildings by improving energy efficient, reducing energy consumption, decarbonising heating and hot water systems and designing sustainable buildings. 

The Trust has: 

• Appointed a retrofit contractor to deliver over £7m of work to support the move to low carbon heating at Broadmoor Hospital, St Bernard's Hospital and Lakeside Mental Health unit from 2024 to 2026 
• Installed solar panels at St Bernard's Hospital
• Replaced building management system (BMW) controls and panels at five sites 
• Improved energy efficiency by installing LED lights and energy efficient air-cooled chillers, replaced windows and renewed insulation of pipework. 

Over the next couple of years, our retrofit projects will drive decarbonisation at our largest sites through solar panel installation, heat pumps, LED lighting, and insulation. We are also exploring opportunities across our wider estate to make our buildings more energy efficient.

We're transitioning to low/zero carbon solutions for the provision of energy services: 

• Reducing consumption
• Introducing new technology
• On-site generation.

Actions we're taking

• Greener, cleaner supply of electricity
• Solar, wind or hydro energy from 1 April 2022.

We will reduce carbon emissions from the food we serve and ensure the provision of healthier, locally sourced and seasonal menus.

The Trust has:

• Achieved a Green Kitchen Standard Award at St Bernard’s Hospital from the Soil Association, recognising our efforts in sustainable energy, water, and waste management practices.
• Awarded Bronze Food for Life accreditation at St Bernard’s and now working toward silver.
• Recognised as an exemplar trust for catering by NHS England. 
• Sourced our food locally, offered seasonal menus, and grown food at some of our sites.
• Implemented electronic food ordering at all our sites to reduce waste.
• Worked closely with service users to make sure the food menu aligns with their cultural, religious, and lifestyle preferences. This has helped to reduce food waste.
• Actively engaged with the community through initiatives such as Olio, food banks, and soup kitchens.

We will seek to enhance our green spaces to help improve the health and well-being of our staff and service users, while also creating habitats for wildlife and supporting biodiversity. 

• Set up Carers’ Corner at The Dig in Hanwell in collaboration with Ealing carers partnership and West London NHS Charity, offering wellbeing sessions and peer support with access to green spaces and home-grown foods.
   
• Set up a Mothers' peers support group to meet once a week outdoors, utilising the green space at The Dig in Hanwell. Mothers engage in creative / nature-based activities and explore their own health and wellbeing.
• Established dementia friendly gardens at Clayponds Hospital in Ealing 
• Service users have participated in grow gardens. The harvest for 2023 and 2024 included fresh produce such as strawberries, aubergines, rhubarb, cabbage, sweetcorn, herbs, green beans, and tomatoes, which has been included in meals served to our patients.  

We will continue to seek opportunities to improve green spaces around the Trust.

We will reduce the carbon emissions related to our prescribing and use of medicines.
 

The pharmacy team has reduced their packaging by switching to recyclable paper packaging and we are exploring ways to further reduce and recycle pharmaceutical waste.

We will choose suppliers and products that have a lower carbon footprint to help reduce emissions.

The Trust has:

• Prohibited the use of non-recycled paper.
• Implemented procurement regulation PPN06/20 (social value) with 10% of the value of tenders assigned to social value, which includes environmental sustainability criteria.
• Implemented procurement regulation PPN06/21, which requires all suppliers with contracts over £5m to have a carbon reduction plan, was implemented from 1 April 2023.

We will:

• Run a gloves off campaign, which encourages staff to only use gloves when necessary.
• Implement a walking-aid reuse scheme.
• Identify the most frequently bought single use items and find ways to replace them with reusable or sustainable alternatives.

We aim to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality from our business travel, staff commuting and patient/visitor travel.

The Trust has:

• Been accredited as Gold Cycle Friendly Employer by Cycle UK at 5 sites:   Broadmoor Hospital, St Bernard’s Hospital, Lakeside Mental Health Unit, and Hammersmith and Fulham Mental Health Unit, as well our Trust headquarters. We are working towards accreditation at all of our sites.
• Implemented active travel incentives such as a bike loan scheme and cycle to work scheme. 260 staff members have used the cycle to works scheme since its inception in 2017.
• Improved facilities for cyclists, including provision of secure cycle sheds, showers, bike repair stations, and lockers.  
• Recruited two cycling volunteers to support our active travel programme. The volunteers provide advice for staff on cycling matters, deal with cycling facilities requests, organise cycling events, and issue a monthly newsletter.
• Installed EV chargers at Broadmoor and St Bernard’s, and are evaluating feasibility at installing chargers at our other sites.
• Invested in electric vehicles for our fleet. As of March 2024, 23% of our fleet was electric.
• Restricted our salary sacrifice scheme to ultra-low emission vehicles only. As of May 2024, 70 percent of vehicles on the scheme were ultra-low emission.  

We will engage and develop our workforce on delivering our sustainability goals.

The Trust has:

• Implemented sustainability objectives into personal development records for all managers
• Established a green champions network
• Rolled out an introductory e-module, “Environmentally Sustainable Healthcare – Building a Net Zero NHS,” produced by NHS England.

We will continue to grow our green champions network and improve sustainability training offerings to ensure staff are empowered to start their own initiatives and champion best practices in their work areas.

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We will embed net zero principles across all clinical services, considering carbon reduction opportunities in the way care is delivered.

We are seeking to identify opportunities across all clinical services to identify how we can deliver lower carbon care. For example, by:

• Providing care closer to home
• Preventing high-carbon interventions, where appropriate
• Implementing lower-carbon interventions where they are clinically equivalent
• Reducing unwarranted variations in care delivery and outcomes that result in unnecessary increases in carbon emissions

We will cut carbon emissions and use fewer natural resources by reducing waste, reusing materials, and recycling as much as possible. 

The Trust has:

• Improved clinical waste segregation by replacing clinical waste bins with offensive waste. We have exceeded the 2026 target set by NHS England to have 60% offensive waste, 20% alternative treatment, and 20% high temperature incineration.  

• Increased recyclable and compostable packaging in catering, for example by switching to recyclable milk cartons at our London sites.

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• Reduced the number of pages printed by 41% between 2022-23 and 2023-24.  

• Collected crisp packets which were donated to a staff member who used them to make blankets for homeless people.

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• Introduced a 50p charge for single-use coffee cups in the staff canteen at Broadmoor Hospital, which has led to a reduction of single-use cups by over two thirds.

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• In 2023, 26 tonnes of food waste were diverted to our bio digester at St Bernard’s Hospital, which produced enough electricity for the national grid to power three average homes in the UK for a year or was used in inorganic fertilisers for crops.

In 2024-25, we will: 

• Continue to work with staff to reduce waste where possible and segregate waste correctly when unavoidable.

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• ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Maintain our excellent clinical waste segregation

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• Increase food waste separation and introduce individual collections to all our community sites with 10 or more staff

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• Segregate food waste produced in Broadmoor Hospital 

We're making sure we invest in green initiatives to provide the resources needed to meet our ambitions: 

• Allocation of capital for projects.

Actions we're taking

• Spending on technology and infrastructure will be core to reaching our net zero emissions target by 2040
• Opportunities to collaborate with all sectors, e.g., local authority, private and voluntary organisations to align our green goals.

We will seek to reduce the risk climate change poses, such as severe weather, to our sites and business function. 

To achieve this, we will develop an adaptation plan in 2024-25, which will focus on the Trust’s plans to mitigate the risks or effects of climate change and severe weather conditions on our business and functions. For example, the effects of flooding or heatwaves on the organisation’s infrastructure, patients, and staff.

With most of our direct carbon emissions being derived from energy and transport, our carbon footprint in 2020, which is our baseline year, was 9395tCO e.  This had reduced to 6695tCO e in 2022. This equates to an approximate reduction of 29%. The reduction in carbon emissions comes directly from our electricity suppliers through a REGO agreement.

In 2020 we moved to a greener cleaner supply for our electricity REGO meaning we now receive renewable energy backed supply from either solar, wind farms or hydro and can now (2022) report zero carbon emissions for the electricity we have control over. This is a carbon reduction of approx. 2,700tonnes!

We have continued to review how we use technology to become more efficient in running our sites and have facilitated the installation of ten electrical vehicle charging points at Broadmoor – bringing our total to 28 across the trust. We also now have three all London electric vehicles being used by our facilities team, which produce zero emissions.

Our Green Champions network brings together staff who are passionate about sustainability and want to make a difference in their work areas. Green Champions help drive positive change by identifying opportunities to promote greener practices and improve efficiency.

We support our Green Champions with resources, training, and opportunities to collaborate, ensuring they have the knowledge and confidence to lead sustainability initiatives. As the network grows, we will continue to provide more learning opportunities and encourage staff to share best practices, making sustainability a core part of everyday work.

The Trust has an active, engaged, and informed green champions network made up of staff from across the entire organisation, who are interested in delivering sustainable change in their work area.

We know that there is more to do, and we are keen to hear from you so if you would like to be involved in the network or to share an idea about making West London Trust greener please email QI@westlondon.nhs.uk

It's essential that colleagues work together at a Trust, ICS, Regional and National level to ensure effective action is taken in a timely manner. We all have a role to play in delivering resilient and robust service provision while working towards an efficient, low carbon, patient focussed care for all, now and for future generations