The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) has launched a tool to help healthcare estates and facilities teams measure the impact on air pollution from stationary sources such as gas boilers, electricity generation, and waste incineration plant.
Early November’s launch of the new Health Outcomes from Stationary Sources Tool (HOST) follows the Unit’s unveiling earlier this year of the Health Outcomes from Travel and Transport Tool (HOTT) – designed to help NHS organisations quantify and report on the scale of air pollution from travel and transport. The SDU maintains that while air pollution causes ill health, and in turn places demands on the NHS, some of the key sources, such as cars and gas boilers, ‘often go unnoticed’.
The Unit explained: “Healthcare engineers can use HOST to quantify the Quality Adjusted Life Years lost from air pollution emissions from heat and power used on NHS sites, as well as to test out scenarios for reducing their organisation’s emissions, and to prioritise reducing air pollution.”
HOST can be used to:
- Support business cases for improving energy sources (e.g., switching to renewable electricity) and energy saving measures.
- Providing information to support staff and community engagement on turning off unused electrical equipment and lights, and closing doors to keep the heat in.
- Engage suppliers from tender stage to consider the environmental impact of energy- using equipment.
- Evaluate the success of past / current travel and transport initiatives.
HOST includes DEFRA damage cost information, combined with Estates Return Information Collection (ERIC) data. It also incorporates ‘multiple years of Trust data’, such as staff (FTE), and floor area. Scenarios can be created by overwriting the appropriate section and quantifying the change in air pollution from different interventions. To download the Health Outcomes from Stationary Sources Tool, visit https://tinyurl.com/y34soruy
