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Greener NHS: simple swaps for Great Big Green Week 2025
The Great Big Green Week, is a nationwide celebration of community-led action for climate and nature, and healthcare has a vital role to play. At the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH), we’re proud to stand with NHS staff, community groups, schools and organisations across the UK who are working to build a greener, healthier future.
“By coming together, we’ll also send a message loud and clear to our politicians and decision makers that we need to swap old ways for better ways now.“
– 2025 Great Big Green Week, The Climate Coalition
This year, we’re focusing on the power of swaps — simple, meaningful changes in how we work, connect and care. From rethinking clinical practices to revitalising green spaces, every swap is a step towards sustainable healthcare.
Why sustainable healthcare matters now more than ever?
Healthcare is both a responder to the climate crisis and, ironically, one of its contributors. The NHS in England is responsible for roughly 4–5% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. From the energy used in buildings, to the supplies used in surgery, to how patients travel, our systems have a significant environmental impact.
At the same time, climate change is already affecting the health of our population through air pollution, extreme weather, food insecurity and more.
That’s why the time to act is now. Sustainable healthcare is about improving health outcomes today without compromising the health of future generations. It means doing more with less waste, rethinking clinical practice, and designing healthcare around people and planet.
How the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare is making an impact
Supporting Green Spaces in Healthcare
Nature has always played a crucial role in health, but sometimes we forget just how powerful it can be. Our green space team works to bring nature back into healthcare environments and promote access to green spaces for staff, patients and communities.
Green spaces help:
• Improve air quality
• Provide cool, comfortable areas in hot weather
• Create places for exercise, rest and connection
• Support mental health and biodiversity
What can you do this Great Big Green Week?
- Take your meetings outside – a meeting outside whether sat down or walking improves staff wellbeing. It also helps to remind people what an amazing resource green spaces are and encourages people to develop them and look after them.
- Promote nature connection – even patients and staff who cannot get outside can still connect with nature. Encourage staff and patients to take a moment to look out of the window and see what they can spot or bring safe natural items inside. Whenever possible encourage staff and patients to spend time outside – even if they can’t go far.
- Sign up to plant some trees – our tree planting programme is back. Visit the NHS Forest website to find out more. We have very limited stock this year so it will be first come, first served.
- Learn – we have lots of fantastic learning opportunities this summer:
- Celebrate – If you know a healthcare site that has gone above and beyond with developing its green spaces nominate them for an NHS Forest Award!
- Stay informed – our NHS Forest conference is planned for 2 October. Sign up to our newsletter to see when tickets are released and keep up to date with our latest news.
Empowering clinical teams to lead change
Behind every sustainable healthcare shift is a clinician asking how can we do this better? Our Clinical Team supports healthcare professionals to embed sustainability into their everyday practice through:
- Sustainability in Quality Improvement (SusQI) – a framework that looks at clinical change through the lens of environmental, social and economic value. We offer project support, training and free online resources to help teams make their work greener
- Education – equipping professionals with the skills to lead change, from understanding carbon footprints to introducing sustainability into QI processes
- Sustainability Analytics – building the evidence base around healthcare’s environmental impacts and helping teams use data to drive low-carbon change
- Sustainable Specialties – supporting clinical specialties to lead sustainability work in their own fields, with targeted research and support for local transformation
What can you do this Great Big Green Week?
- Join one of our SusQI or specialty-specific courses to develop your knowledge and confidence
- Reflect on your clinical pathways. Where are the carbon hotspots? Could you use fewer resources while improving care?
- Share your learning. Change is contagious when we talk about it
- Explore our growing library of case studies and research
- Start a small project. Many swaps begin with a single idea
A few swap stories
During our recent Green Team Competition, teams across the NHS led inspiring sustainability projects that show the power of local action:
- Improving reuse and recycling of walking aids across a Trust, reducing waste and promoting circular practices
- Reducing, reusing and recycling in Critical Care, cutting single-use items and redesigning processes to save carbon and cost
- Enhancing sustainability in endoscopy at RUH Bath through PPE reduction and simple switches with big impact
- Reducing unnecessary glove use in neonatal and children’s units at Swansea Bay, helping staff rethink default practices without compromising patient safety
Let’s keep building momentum
Great Big Green Week is more than a moment, it’s part of a movement. Every green space project, every clinical pathway redesign, every education session adds up to a healthcare system that’s fit for the future.
At the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, we believe in empowering people to take practical action where they are. Whether you’re a nurse, GP, estates manager or student, there is something you can do. And we’re here to help you do it.
Together, let’s keep swapping, sharing and building a healthier, greener NHS for this generation and the next.
