The NHS aims to provide health and high quality care for all, now and for future generations. This requires a resilient NHS, currently responding to the health emergency that COVID-19 brings, protecting patients, our staff and the public. The NHS also needs to respond to the health emergency that climate change brings, which will need to be embedded into everything we do now and in the future.
More intense storms and floods, more frequent heatwaves and the spread of infectious disease from climate change threaten to undermine years of health gains. Action on climate change will affect this, and it will also bring direct improvements for public health and health equity. Reaching our country’s ambitions under the Paris Climate Change Agreement4 could see over 5,700 lives saved every year from improved air quality, 38,000 lives saved every year from a more physically active population and over 100,000 lives saved every year from healthier diets.
The NHS embarked on a process to identify the most credible, ambitious date that the health service could reach net zero emissions. This work comprised an international call for evidence, with nearly 600 submissions provided in support of further commitments on climate change; a robust analytical process described throughout this report; and the guidance of a newly formed NHS Net Zero Expert Panel.
With the UK government hosting the UN climate change negotiations in 2021, we will launch an engagement process with patients, NHS staff and the public over the coming months, to identify further opportunities and resource to help decarbonise our health service.
Two clear and feasible targets emerge for the NHS net zero commitment, based on the scale of the challenge posed by climate change, current knowledge, and the interventions and assumptions that underpin this analysis:
• for the emissions we control directly (the NHS Carbon Footprint), net zero by 2040, with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2028 to 2032
• for the emissions we can influence (our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus), net zero by 2045, with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2036 to 2039.
An overview of the interventions required to meet these targets is provided in the sections below, accompanied by analysis of the expected carbon reductions and any risks, and opportunities for an accelerated timeline.
A number of early steps has been promised on the Delivering a ‘Net Zero’
National Health Service report:
1. Our care: By developing a framework to evaluate carbon reduction associated with new models of care being considered and implemented as part of the NHS Long Term Plan.
2. Our medicines and supply chain: By working with our suppliers to ensure that all of them meet or exceed our commitment on net zero
emissions before the end of the decade.
3. Our transport and travel: By working towards road-testing for what would be the world’s first zero-emission ambulance by 2022, with a shift to zero emission vehicles by 2032 feasible for the rest of the fleet.
4. Our innovation: By ensuring the digital transformation agenda aligns with our ambition to be a net zero health service, and implementing a net zero horizon scanning function to identify future pipeline innovations.
5. Our hospitals: By supporting the construction of 40 new ‘net zero hospitals’ as part of the government’s Health Infrastructure Plan with a new Net Zero Carbon Hospital Standard.
6. Our heating and lighting: By completing a £50 million LED lighting replacement programme, which, expanded across the entire NHS, would
improve patient comfort and save over £3 billion during the coming three decades.
7. Our adaptation efforts: By building resilience and adaptation into the heart of our net zero agenda, and vice versa, with the third Health and
Social Care Sector Climate Change Adaptation Report in the coming months.
6 | Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service
8. Our values and our governance: By supporting an update to the NHS Constitution to include the response to climate change, launching a new national programme For a greener NHS, and ensuring that every NHS organisation has a board-level net zero lead, making it clear that this is a key responsibility for all NHS staff.