My name is Amy and I am the junior doctor ‘Sustainability Fellow’ for the Severn Deanery in the UK. It is a new post this year so I have a blank slate to work with. It is a post I have taken on in addition to being a full time junior doctor. My job description is to use my role as a clinician to help promote sustainable working practices in the deanery and thus reduce carbon emissions.

I am in post for two years and I have a lot of time and energy to put into projects. I am keen to get ideas from other people about sucessful sustainability projects they have been involved in. If you have any such ideas then please let me know.

Thanks for your help! 

Congratulations to the Severn Deanery, which has been placed in the top three for Bristol Zoo’s Walk of Fame ‘Green Team’ award! Innovative activities over 2012 have included the GP Sustainability Scholarship Programme, the Sustainability Foundation Fellowship for junior doctors and a study into the carbon footprint of travel associated with GP training programmes in the South West.

The Public Health Registrar Sustainable Development Network is comprised of a group of Public Health Registrars across the UK. The foundations of the network were developed by Fiona Head and Kate Charlesworth, who developed a nationwide education programme on environmental sustainability. Since then, the network has grown, with members from each of the training regions in England, alongside Specialty Registrars from Scotland and Wales. The network meets regularly through telephone meetings chaired by James Smith and Stephen Dorey.

When we asked whom Ed worked with in the Department of Health his honest reply was that Health was not a department that he frequently links with because there are so many others. The policy of the government at present is to concentrate on directly cleaning up the sources of energy emissions as a priority as well as beginning to tackle the housing stock via the Green Deal, while delaying work on what they admit are important but longer term issues such as wide scale reduction in demand and greener technologies for aeroplanes.