An updated report on the carbon footprint of the NHS will be published in January, providing fresh evidence to drive cuts in emissions.
David Pencheon, director of the NHS Sustainable Development Unit (SDU), announced the update at last week's IHEEM Healthcare Estates Conference, where he appealed to hospital trusts and primary care providers to embrace the sustainability agenda.
He said: "Sustainability is not about durability and it’s not about the future. It is about something that is good now and does not do harm in the future. The evidence for sustainability is now absolutely overwhelming. We are facing, without action, absolutely cataclysmic change and the evidence that the world is in trouble is stronger than the evidence for most clinical interventions.
"The dangers are happening slow enough for us not to notice, but fast enough to cause some real damage. This is why the NHS is publishing an updated carbon footprint report early next year."
Also speaking at the conference was Trevor Payne, director of estates and facilities management at the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), which has taken the lead on carbon reduction.
He said: "There are many reasons to be more sustainable. There are the scientific reasons, as we are releasing 350 million years of stored CO2 into the atmosphere; the legal reasons with the Climate Change Act; and there is the health case.
"A low-carbon sustainable system can generate income and cut costs and our values in the NHS are to protect health and wellbeing, so we should take the lead on this."
UCLH has now drawn up a far-reaching strategy for carbon reduction, which has been signed off at board level, creating a sense of responsibility across all departments.
Payne said: "Early on we identified our top 10 carbon criminals in terms of suppliers and worked with them. We also looked at our buildings as most of them we will have for the next 25 years or so, so we have to make them more sustainable.
"If we do this right it will save us money and be an income generator."
Getting board-level involvement, like UCLH has done, is crucial to the success of a strategy, according to Niall Trafford. Chief operating officer at sustainability consultancy, BRE, he said the NHS needed to take a similar approach to high street giant, M and S.
"The strategy needs to be led from the top," he told the audience. "M and S does not call it a sustainability committee, it is known as the 'how to do business committee'. The chief executive chairs it and makes every meeting without fail. He has been very clear all along that doing nothing was not an option. The leaders of organisations have to be the drivers and have to lead with absolute direction and focus."