Estates and Facilities
Nature in every corner
How Is Climate Change Affecting Hospital Sites?
Facilities and estate in secondary care include laundry, maintenance, groundkeeping and are essential to the safe running of a hospital. Often many of the activities in facilities are carried out in older, uninsulated buildings without air conditioning. Many processes require significant amounts of energy and generate a lot of heat, which during heatwaves, can pose a significant risk to the health of staff.
Additionally, extreme weather events including heatwaves, floods and storms, can pose a risk to the equipment required to ensure the departments continue to function. An example of a catastrophic impact of heatwaves was seen in 2022 in Guys’ and St Thomas’ hospital trust, where heatwaves caused and IT system ‘meltdown’ affecting patient care and many other services.
How Are Hospital Facilities Affecting Climate Change?
Activities carried out in these departments are often very energy intensive, for example laundry that needs to be cleaned at high temperatures. Waste disposal, cleaning and maintenance all require resources and energy. If carried out incorrectly or inefficiently, this can lead to excessive energy consumption such as the unnecessary incineration of waste and chemicals running into our waterways.
Other activities such as aggressive maintenance of lawns, hedgerows and trees and the use of pesticides and herbicides can damage local biodiversity.
What Can I Do as an Individual?
Often, individuals feel unable to change such a large system, but there are many things you can do at work to have a significant impact:
- Reduce the screen brightness on computers and switch off devices when you leave work rather than leave them on standby.
- Minimise your own waste, such as bringing a reusable coffee cup to work, and be an advocate for correct waste disposal.
- Allow “wild areas” to flourish on the hospital sites, either through activities such as “No Mow May” or installing bird and bug houses.
- Apply for tree planting grants for your sites. Trees can lower temperatures in heatwaves by over 10C and will help to keep people safe whilst visiting hospital!
What Can I Do - Managers?
If you are a manager, you have the power to make a massive difference in your departments.
Consider starting some collective initiatives, such as car sharing schemes or "meat-free Mondays".
Negotiate with the trust to switch to a renewable energy provider and look to set up a Power Purchase Agreement to almost completely remove the carbon footprint of your site!
Check out Real Zero for more information on Power Purchase agreements and the renewable energy transition