Free report in return for your procurement data

To reduce the NHS’s carbon footprint the NHS SDU has begun a project to assess the carbon footprint of health service procurement in depth.

“It allows organisations to look a little deeper at the costs embedded in all the items they buy,” explains SDU Analyst Imogen Tennison.

“As costs increase, understanding the ‘carbon hot spots’, that’s to say the areas which produce the most carbon, will be essential to saving money and resources in the future.”

In 2008 the NHS SDU calculated the carbon footprint of NHS expenditure at a national level, which at that stage, was the largest scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon footprint project of any organisation in the world. 

To improve those calculations we now need your help.

We would like you to send us your expenditure and procurement data.

60% of the NHS carbon footprint is down to the services we buy or use. We want to reduce this and provide a more in depth understanding of the footprint.  

By providing us with your data we will be able to establish which areas of procurement are most carbon intensive and discover which types of goods and services contribute most to the carbon footprint.

In return for your help you will receive, free of charge, a customised summary report highlighting the carbon hotspots of your organisation.  This will show you potentially where the biggest CO2 (and possibly financial) savings can be made.

Sonia Roschnik, Operations Director of the NHS Sustainable Development Unit (NHS SDU) says:

“The NHS SDU is pleased that NHS organisations are getting the opportunity to identify carbon hot spots in their procurement carbon footprint at no cost. The analysis could also provide greater transparency about which suppliers, products and types of organisation are the biggest contributors to the NHS England procurement carbon footprint.

"Achieving the targets set out in the Climate Change Act will only be possible with increased transparency about the carbon footprint of goods and services we buy.”

If you would like to take part in this project then please get in touch with Imogen.Tennison@sdu.nhs.uk

You can read an article in the Healthcare Finance Magazine (p5) then click here.  If you have difficulty seeing this then please contact Karl.


Notes:

Any data supplied will be analysed by NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) and @UK using  advanced techniques in data analysis.  The results will be available in early 2012.