NHS under pressure to cut carbon emissions

Online, May 12, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) recently called on NHS Trusts across the UK to sign up to a new set of voluntary guidelines designed to help them curb their carbon emissions and augment environmental performance.

The guidelines have been developed alongside the NHS Sustainable Development Unit and feature on a website entitled Good Corporate Citizenship. The site provides an interactive self-assessment tool designed to help NHS professionals measure their carbon emissions, and provides advice on a wide range of best practices designed to help hospitals and other NHS sites reduce their energy use, carbon emissions and other environmental impacts.

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme: risks to the NHS

The NHS spends £480m each year on energy bills and dealing with waste. It is therefore one of the largest non-industrial consumers of energy in the UK and is under growing pressure to cut its energy use and carbon emissions, particularly given that many larger hospitals have joined the government's new CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme last month.

Some commentators have warned the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, which distributes financial bonuses and penalties to participating organisations based on their ability to improve energy efficiency, could result in taxpayers money being transferred to private firms if hospitals and schools are outperformed by those private sector organisations included in the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.