Sustainable Development

The NHS is one of the world's largest employers with a significant carbon footprint of over 18 million tonnes of CO2 every year. This represents 3% of the UK and 30% of public sector emissions.

As an NHS organisation, we are committed to meeting the Department of Health's goal for 'the NHS to be the most visible and effective public sector exemplar in sustainable development in general and carbon reduction in particular'.

During 2010/11 we partnered with the Carbon Trust on the Central Government Carbon Management Service programme to understand our carbon footprint and identify projects to deliver substantial carbon and cost savings. As a result of this we produced our first Carbon Management Plan, committing to a 25% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2015 that would also provide potential cumulative savings of around £7.5 million by the same date.