Green team competition helps to discover new areas of sustainability

At Hampshire Hospitals, staff are constantly analysing how they may be able to do things in greener ways to reduce the trust’s carbon footprint while still delivering exceptional care.

To encourage staff to think differently, for the last two years, Hampshire Hospitals Trust, in conjunction with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, has run a green team competition for teams to develop innovative ways for them to cut their carbon emissions. The winning team is then awarded a prize to spend on further sustainability initiatives.

Winning this year was the team from Nightingale theatres which presented several projects to help reduce their carbon output and improve efficiencies within the department. These included the delivery of oral paracetamol instead of administering intravenously, optimising the ventilation in theatres and switching disposable equipment for some reusable apparatus. In total, they projected that the proposals they were currently looking at could reduce their carbon waste by over 50,000kg a year and bring a total saving to the trust of over £30,000.

Sabrina Marsden, fundraising manager for Hampshire Hospitals Charity, said; “The charity shares the trust and wider NHS’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2040. As part of this, we support the green team competition by providing the funding for the programme and awarding the winning team with the means to be able to make further sustainability improvements, leading to greener outcomes. This investment also often leads to longer terms monetary savings for the trust which can then be invested in other areas.”

When combined, the six teams that presented their work this year saved an estimated 108,212kg of CO2 which is equal to an average car driving 318,842 miles.

The Hampshire Hospitals Green Team members, Sustainability team, Judging panel and CSH SusQI Lead.