Digital tools can improve funding bid success rates

Chris Brown, Public Sector lead at IES, ‘a global innovator in integrated performance-based analysis for the built environment’, discusses the need for NHS Trusts to be able to provide comprehensive data on current performance, and good evidence of the need for funding, when seeking monies for heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures. One of the ways they can do this – he explains – is via the use of the appropriate ‘digital tools’.

As a result of its energy-intensive nature, the healthcare sector is a significant contributor to emissions. NHS emissions alone are currently responsible for 4% of England’s total carbon footprint, and the operation of NHS facilities accounts for up to 15% of the total carbon emissions profile. The energy crisis has also led to crippling energy bills for many NHS Trusts, with some facing an extra spend of up to £2 m per month when fuel prices surged. As a result, efforts to improve energy efficiency are not only fundamental to reducing the impact of healthcare on the environment, but also to reducing the burden of operational costs on the NHS. 

Recognising the need to decarbonise and drive down energy bills, the NHS has pledged to be Net Zero by 2045, meaning that time is ticking for Trusts to implement measures. However, to get here significant improvements will need to be made across all areas, including how buildings are constructed, retrofitted, and operated, to increase energy efficiency.