Summary of last week’s focused discussion

While there are some who already have their Green Agenda strategy there are many of you that are at the very start of the journey and are looking for inspiration. Our discussion session on 2 August barely scraped the surface but the enthusiasm and willingness of our guests to go out there and make changes to the way we live and work to improve our environment was exceptional.

The session was split into three breakout groups and would like to thank Emma Valentine from NHS England for joining us and facilitating one of the groups. Each group brought different ideas to the table but the common theme and possibly the biggest challenge for all three groups was the need for a cultural shift to change the hearts and minds of people to get them onboard.

The roles of the ‘Green’ volunteers may not turn out to be a traditional role but ones where you could perhaps maximise the interests of your volunteers. Could some of your volunteers be upskilled to support sustainability? Do you have any existing volunteer roles where even minor changes could have an environmental impact?

There is so much more to discuss and share on this subject and we will be following this up with more sessions and are also looking into setting up a webinar. We would also like to say a big thank you to Diane Young from RNOH for being the inspiration for this discussion by starting a conversation about the Go Greener Agenda on the Forum.

Below are just a few ideas and links that were shared.

Inspiring ideas

• One Trust has gardens, orchards and a pond around the hospital that need attention so they are getting volunteering groups to help.

• Tree planting.

• Litter picking volunteers

  • Link in with organisations in your community that already have gardening or litter picking volunteers. Example

  • Gardening and litter picking projects are a great source of news and photo opportunities for your Comms.

• Reduce paper waste by updating records digitally and print when only absolutely necessary. An obvious one but not always an easy one to maintain.

• Connect with your local authority - see what your local council are doing in relation to environment

• Waste Disposal. Can any of it be recycled and could a volunteer help you do this?

  • Soft plastics. For example the packaging for dressings and syringes. There are organisations that are able to recycle these for you, for example the Co-Op. Some recycling can generate an income for your hospital charity.

  • Masks. Northumbria Healthcare introduced a mask recycling machine Some of the recycled plastic was used to produce their Staff Awards.

  • Volunteers are helping recycle at Salisbury District Hospital. Their first task was to organise and repair unwanted office furniture to promote its reuse to save the trust from buying new and making huge financial savings.

Useful and inspirational Links

West London NHS Green Plan

Cycling Lead Volunteer

Carbon Literacy Training

“An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis.”

Forest Green Rovers, The World's Greenest Football Club

“I have been shown around and in my previous role they were really supportive with helping the wider community with healthy greener eating.”

SEE Monster

“SEE MONSTER is a retired rig from the North Sea, transformed into one of the UK’s largest public art installations to inspire global conversations about a sustainable future.”