The climate crisis has a direct impact on health. The NHS has made a pledge to be carbon neutral by 2040. Here at Sydenham Green, we recognise our responsibility as NHS healthcare providers to protect the health of the people of Lewisham by reducing our impact on the environment. This means improving patient care whilst reducing air pollution, reducing waste and reducing our carbon footprint.
You can find more information on the National Greener Practice website including information on air pollution, healthy sustainable diets, physical activity and inhalers.
The practice is signed up to the Green Impact for Health programme. Green Impact is an environmental accreditation scheme that encourages pro-environmental behaviours amongst staff. It empowers sustainability champions within their workplace, helping them gain recognition for their environmental efforts, whilst playing on the competitive spirit of staff working in teams. It provides people and their departments with a tangible framework for improving their environmental performance, breaking down complex environmental issues into more manageable bite-sized chunks.
Green Impact provides a mechanism for finding, engaging and empowering environmental champions bottom-up, adding value to existing champion schemes.
- It enables champions to take targeted practical action through the framework, in so doing tackling common bad practices
- It is a tried and tested way of getting staff to buy into to top-down environmental targets and policies
- It gives champions a bespoke function and role. This helps create a champion identity
- It creates a collective momentum of positive action amongst staff that can be self-perpetuating
- Through the annual cycle of the programme, and the function of adding criteria, it allows momentum to be gained and sustained, meaning long term engagement
- It helps with team building and creating a positive ethos on the workplace
