SCW's Green Network host quarterly Sustainability Cafés for our internal colleagues to engage with our net zero ambitions. To date, topics have included:

• Midwifery and maternity
• Health inequalities
• Travel
• Digital
• What net zero means for SCW services
• Sustainable healthcare in practice

Sustainability Café May 2024 - midwifery and maternity

This café aligned with International Day of the Midwife 2024 and focused on the vital role of midwives in adapting health systems and lowering carbon emissions. Speakers were Sophie Joy, Midwife Sonographer and Angie Willis, Chief Sustainability Officer Clinical Fellow and Midwife.

Sustainability Café November 2023 - climate change: affecting health and exacerbating health inequalities

The guest speaker was Dr Hayley Pinto from the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. We also hosted a panel to explore and discuss the health impacts of climate change and its connection to health. This included Andrew Fenton, Transformation Director for health inequalities and net zero and Nicky Philpott, Deputy Director for Greener NHS Clinical Transformation team. 

Sustainability Café July 2023 - travelling sustainably for the benefit of people, communities and populations

Guest speaker Chris Billington, Public Health Strategist, Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) London discussed ‘Active travel to achieve a Net Zero NHS’. This talk covered the health implications of physical inactivity and poor air quality. He also provided practical advice on how the NHS can increase active travel of both patients and staff for the benefit of the individual, the environment and the economy.

Our Green Plan Implementation Lead, Kristy Darcy, presented on ‘SCW: Travelling in the right direction’. Kristy detailed how we are travelling as an organisation and working to move towards more sustainable and active travel, in line with our Green Plan.

One participant has already taken action, cycling to meet friends. They said "small steps can make a big difference". 

Sustainability Café February 2023 - the environmental impact and opportunities of digital

This café focused not only on the impacts of digital on sustainability, but also on the opportunities digital technology brings for a sustainable future.

Ben Tongue, Digital Net Zero Lead, updated the SCW Green Network on the NHS England Transformation Directorate's digital sustainability, net zero and climate resistance agendas. Ben said 'digital offers lots of sweet spot activity for decarbonisation and adaptation benefits'.

Sophie Walton, NHS SCW Graduate Management Trainee, shared tips, tricks and easy wins for how we can use digital technology more sustainably in our work lives. This included internet and data storage, e-waste, and teamwork and file sharing.

Sustainability Café September 2022 – what net zero means for SCW services

This café turned the focus to NHS SCW, with examples of how our staff are incorporating net zero thinking into their ways of working and contributing to the delivery of greener and more sustainable healthcare through our work with customers.

Cathrine Bird, Senior IT Trainer in SCW’s Digital, Data and Technology team, shared how the NHS SCW training team have taken up the challenges set by the Green Plan. This includes a net zero teams group created to think up new ideas, piloting a new course which incorporates sustainable messaging into GP system training and aligning team meetings with World Environment Day.

Clare Scarborough, Principal Geospatial Analyst in NHS SCW’s Geospatial Services team, discussed how NHS SCW are developing customer tools using world-leading Esri geospatial software to develop solutions to increase efficiency, supporting the overarching goal of helping the NHS reach net zero. View an example of how this tool works.

Sustainability Café May 2022 – sustainable healthcare in practice  

For the first café, four inspiring speakers gave presentations on their contributions to the NHS' net zero by 2040 plans, giving tangible solutions to inspire colleagues across NHS SCW.

Contributions included:

• A Green Ward competition with a project focusing on reducing unnecessary cannulation in an emergency department, causing 8400kg of CO2 to be saved over one year.

• A Dare to Care campaign with over 12,000 participants pledging to be more sustainable.

• A wild swimming project for the BAME communities, with hijab wetsuits included and translated into other languages for accessibility.

• SCW's significant difference in the carbon footprint of the Child Health Information Services communications by changing from paper to digital. This showed how the team is exploring the potential to use digital communications to reduce the carbon footprint of delivering this service from 1.8 tonnes of CO2 to only 186 grams. 

'Human health is, of course, reliant on the health of the planet, and yet, unfortunately, healthcare is part of the climate problem.' - Susannah McWilliam, Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

'In the last two years, it’s been incredible how much people have started to talk about sustainable healthcare.' - Hayley Carmichael, Care Without Carbon

'The CHIS team in NHS SCW has come a long way to reduce their paper, time, and space wastage. We are not afraid to get carbon literate and hold our hands up in regard to the environmental impact that still remains today.' - Molly Wescott, NHS SCW Child Health Information Services

Find out more about SCW's Green Plan.