Cornish NHS to declare “climate emergency”, set ambitious net zero emissions plan

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) has set itself the very ambitious goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030, a recent news report has been able to reveal.

The STP has established a sustainability board to create and oversee a plan to deliver the ambition and will formally declare a “climate emergency” at an event on 20 March.

The move comes two months after NHS England announced it will hire a panel of experts to set a “practical, evidence-based and ambitious” date for the NHS to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions. The regulator has not declared a “climate emergency”.

The commitment to aim for net zero emissions was agreed by the boards of Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust and Kernow CCG within the last fortnight.

The STP’s three NHS organisations will spend up to six months developing their plan for meeting the target.

The trio will be helped by the council and the University of Exeter, which will assist in providing a “baseline carbon calculation” for each of the three organisations.

As well as having managers on the system-wide sustainability board, each organisation will also appoint executive, non-executive and clinical leads on climate change.

Risks associated with the need to mitigate climate change will be added to the organisations’ risk registers.

HeatingSave Building Management System BMS – the best solution for helping the NHS tackle the “climate emergency”

The HeatingSave Building Management System BMS can help drive down energy use and carbon emissions across NHS facilities by both optimizing the way in which heating and HVAC systems work, but also by making it a lot less likely for employees to tamper with the controls – and thus waste energy and money.

HeatingSave has a number of features to prevent employees from adjusting the heating controls and leaving them in setting that can waste fuel. The keypad and display on the front of the controller has two levels of password protection.

These passwords can be changed by authorized personnel locally or centrally using the PC software. The password programming meets the requirements laid down by the Carbon Trust, and the PC software is user ID and password protected too.

Naturally, employees do have the right to set the ambient temperature at a value that best suites their needs, and HeatingSave manages this situation by firstly getting the temperature right so people don’t feel too hot or cold. If employees do feel too cold, they can hit a button to increase the room temperature. The heating will be turned up for a while BUT will then automatically turn back – keeping the employee at the right comfort temperature – and saving the employer on their fuel bill.

If you’d like to find out more about the savings enabled by the HeatingSave Building Management System, just contact our dedicated product team, they’ll be more than happy to answer all of your questions and queries.