Estates and facilities – Green Plan

The NHS estate accounts for approximately 15% of the total carbon emissions of the NHS; this includes energy consumption, water and waste.

In January 2023, the NHS clinical waste strategy was published, including the waste hierarchy, which sets out in order of priority, the waste management options as defined by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), adapted for clinical waste.

Efforts are also underway to improve air quality across the city, which is aligned to the Trust’s core ambition to improve public health and reduce inequalities.

The Health Technical Memorandum 07-01: Safe and sustainable management of healthcare waste details best practice for waste management, the environmental benefits and identifies potential opportunities for cost savings and carbon emission reductions.

Our estates and facilities objective is to:

Operate an efficient estate with detailed understanding of our resource consumption and waste generation, delivering our plans to decarbonise and reduce waste.

Where we are

  • We have developed a heat decarbonisation plan (HDP) focussing on the removal of fossil fuels as primary energy sources across our sites
  • We secured £600k funding for LED lighting to enable us to achieve 100% LED across the estate
  • We have received funding to install more solar PV panels to increase our renewable energy generation
  • We have an energy manager who monitors the energy consumption across our sites and is responsible for identifying reduction opportunities
  • Our new buildings are served by non-fossil fuel sources

Where we want to be

  • Remove fossil fuels as primary energy sources, switching to heat pumps or district heat networks where possible
  • Install submetering to understand and ultimately reduce our energy consumption
  • Reduce waste across the estate using the waste hierarchy and providing training to staff
  • Improve the performance of our building with better controls and fabric upgrades

Actions

We have identified the following actions to enable achievement of our estates and facilities objective:
Action Trust lead Delivery date
Improve energy usage and reporting, develop business case(s) for submetering, water efficiency and steam surveys, and, where possible and affordable, purchase green energy Head of Sustainability / Energy Manager End of 2025
Implement our HDP (and review annually) to support the removal of fossil fuels and our move to electrifying our hot water and heating solutions Director of Estates and Facilities From 2025 to 2028
Continue to explore and submit bids for grants and funding opportunities to support our transformation to a net zero estate Director of Estates and Facilities From 2025 to 2028
Complete studies on theatre energy usage and consider initiatives such as setback, lights, anaesthetic gas scavenging and automatic shutdowns Deputy Director of Estates and Facilities End of 2025
Support the periodic monitoring of internal and external air quality through joint efforts between Estates, Occupational Health, and Facilities teams. Head of Sustainability End of 2026
Ensure all applicable new building and major refurbishment projects are compliant with the NHS Net Zero Building Standard and BREEAM Healthcare methodology Director of Estates and Facilities Immediately
Explore opportunities to reduce on-site water consumption Deputy Director of Estates and Facilities End of 2025
Continue to install and increase usage of renewable energy by investing in on- or near-site renewable energy generation, such as solar panels, solar thermal, etc. Energy Manager / Deputy Director of Estates and Facilities From 2025 to 2028
Improve our waste segregation and waste management through the introduction of waste training for the waste hierarchy and installing a waste compactor to reduce our number and volume of collections Deputy Director of Estates and Facilities End of 2028

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