Environmental sustainability – sustainable development

Quality statement

We understand any negative impact of our activities on the environment and we strive to make a positive contribution in reducing it and support people to do the same.

What this quality statement means

• Staff and leaders understand that climate change is a significant threat to the health of people who use services, their staff, and the wider population. 
• Staff and leaders empower their staff to understand sustainable healthcare and how to reduce the environmental impact of healthcare activity. 
• Staff and leaders encourage a shared goal of preventative, high quality, low carbon care which has health benefits for staff and the population the providers serve, for example, how a reduction in air pollution will lead to significant reductions in coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer, among others. 
• Staff and leaders have Green Plans and take action to ensure the settings in which they provide care are as low carbon as possible, ensure energy efficiency, and use renewable energy sources where possible. 
• Staff and leaders take active steps towards ensuring the principles of net zero care are embedded in planning and delivery of care. Low carbon care is resource efficient and supports care to be delivered in the right place at the right time.

Subtopics this quality statement covers

• Staff awareness and education 
• Carbon reduction. For example, within travel and transport, medicines, and supply chain 
• Health promotion and prevention
• Estates and Facilities. For example, energy saving measures, lower carbon options and waste reduction including recycling
• Efficient service delivery with resource optimisation

How is environmental sustainability implemented?

• Environmental sustainability will be assessed in NHS trusts (at trust level) and as part of the ICS assessments for the first year of the Single Assessment Framework (SAF).
• We will not be assessing the environmental sustainability quality statement in other service types during the first year.
• We will continue to develop and co-produce our approach to assessing this quality statements for other sectors prior to roll out.
• We will not create a transitional score for environmental sustainability in the same way that we do for other quality statements. Environmental sustainability will only be scored when an assessment has taken place.