Our sustainability strategy

"We should work harder to find the synergies [between reducing emissions and improving health] - we need to be creative.1"

 1 Sir Liam Donaldson Chief Medical Officer, December 2008

Forward to our Sustainability Strategy by Paul Zollinger-Read Chief Executive NHS Cambridgeshire

There is no doubt in my mind that the next major resource challenge that the NHS will face will be a shortage of fossil fuels and that carbon will become a currency in its own right. We are already at the beginning of an enormous financial challenge as central government funding for the provision of health and social care starts to reduce in real terms. This challenge however will seem manageable in comparison to the challenges that the NHS face in reducing its carbon footprint over the next decade particularly as we will see increasing demand from an ageing and demanding public.

This Sustainability Strategy, along with our annual Sustainability Development Action Plan (available in download section below), sets out how NHS Cambridgeshire (NHSC) will lead the local NHS in the county in terms of setting out strategies and annual targets to achieve the demanding targets in reducing our carbon footprint.

We are committed to playing a major role in carbon management across the county and you will see from the work we are undertaking with other public sector organisations in and around the county that we are not alone in taking this view. Indeed we will work very closely with Cambridgeshire County Council, countywide District Councils and Cambridge City Council and our private sector partners to ensure that we achieve the necessary focus in highlighting to staff and users the need to reduce our carbon footprint.

There has been some good progress over the last two years as public awareness grows and staff have begun to take an interest in what we, as a responsible employer, are planning to do to reduce our dependency on carbon. Indeed we also have a moral and fiscal duty to ensure that the suppliers and providers of health and social care also take responsibility for managing their carbon usage and we will use our considerable spending power and leverage to insist on these behaviours using our contracting and performance regime to monitor progress.

This strategy takes a five-year view on carbon management and along with our five year Business Strategy provides an exemplar template for the necessary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that we will need to demonstrate leadership of the NHS in Cambridgeshire to all of our stakeholders. I hope to be the first Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the NHS to declare a carbon neutral footprint over the course of this strategy.

Chief Executive Officer
NHS Cambridgeshire March 2010