Meeting the challenge of ‘Net Zero’ carbon

Speaking at a webinar staged by IHEEM in conjunction with HEFMA and the Carbon & Energy Fund (CEF) on 14 April, at which the three organisations officially launched their jointly produced A Healthcare Engineering Roadmap for Delivering Net Zero Carbon document (see also pages 27-30), Dame Sue Ion, DBE, FRS, FREng, FIMMM, addressed the topic, ‘Decarbonising the NHS in the Context of National Policy’. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

Dame Sue Ion spoke to an online audience of around 600 attendees in the opening session of the webinar, and was immediately followed, in the speaking slot’s second ‘half’, by Dr Nick Starkey, Director of Policy at the Royal Academy of Engineering. Later in the morning, Stephen Lowndes, Technical Director, and Steven Heape, Technical Adviser/Project Manager, both of the CEF, and Guy Kieser, Associate Director of Estates at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, introduced the updated version of A Healthcare Engineering Roadmap for Delivering Net Zero Carbon document, which was published online on 1 March this year. It is effectively an update of the CEF publication, Implementing Energy Strategies in Healthcare Estates – a best practice guide to the Model Hospital, first published in October 2017 (https://tinyurl.com/3fm5yrp7).

‘Original’ commended by Lord Carter