Carbon Footprinting and Triple Bottom Line Analysis

carbon footprint iconA carbon footprint is a measure of the direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by an individual, organisation, product, or service. 

Carbon footprinting can be used to evaluate baseline emissions, monitor progress, identify carbon hotspots and compare products/services, putting you in best place to develop decarbonisation initiatives with the highest impact and set your Green Plan priorities.

A triple bottom line analysis is more comprehensive than a carbon footprint analysis as it looks at the social and financial impact and their causes in addition to the environmental impact.

Our work

CSH supports healthcare organisations (NHS Trust’s, ICS’s, etc.), health professionals, businesses and researchers globally to accelerate their journeys to Net Zero. We offer a variety of free carbon footprinting tools and resources as well as a short course, Carbon Footprinting for Healthcare. In-house experts can help estimate and analyse your carbon footprint at organisation, department or clinical pathway level as well as looking at individual products.

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What we offer

  • Organisational carbon footprint analysis for NHS Trusts and Integrated Care Boards. Calculating scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions and written analysis report including recommendations. £6,000 (excl. VAT).
  • Bespoke carbon footprinting and triple bottom line analysis. 
    • NHS Primary care organisations
    • Non-NHS organisations
    • Carbon footprint or triple bottom line analysis of services/pathways
    • Carbon footprint analysis of products
    • Bespoke carbon literacy workshop
    • Reviewing and developing NHS Trust Green Plans

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Previous projects

Since 2008, our team has conducted research and analysis on a variety of carbon footprint and triple bottom line initiatives. The following list provides an overview of some of our previous projects.

Carbon footprint analysis of NHS Trusts and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) at organisational level:

  • Estimation of scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust for 2020-21 and 2021-22 to identify carbon hotspots and compare against the baseline year (2019-20) to monitor progress towards net zero.
  • Estimation of scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions of South-East London Integrated Care board (ICB) to provide a GHG emissions baseline as part of their South-East London ICS Green Plan.

Carbon modelling of healthcare services:

  • Estimation of the annual carbon footprint of NHS sight tests at five fixed site optometry practices in the Northwest. This included, estimating the average carbon footprint of an NHS sight test and developing recommendations for reducing its GHG emissions. The average carbon footprint per NHS sight test across the five practices was estimated to be 5.27 kgCO2e with GHG emissions from travel and energy being the biggest contributors.
  • Carbon modelling of 17 of the most common dental procedures, including both high volume and resource intensive procedures to identify the dental procedures within the service which produce the largest amounts of GHG emissions.

Triple bottom line analysis of healthcare services:

  • Triple bottom line analysis of eye motility services at Moorfields Eye hospital. The analysis found that overall, satellite clinics have a lower environmental impact, are less costly and their health and social impact is similar.
  • In partnership with South Warwickshire healthcare providers to evaluate the environmental, financial, social and clinical outcomes of the Covid-19 changes to the Discharge to Assess process.

Delivery of carbon footprinting training:

  • CSH has offered carbon footprinting for healthcare courses since 2020. We have now developed a course tailored to an US audience.
  • We have also delivered a bespoke carbon literacy workshop for the marketing and communications team of a veterinary pharmaceutical company.

Tools & resources

Carbon Footprinting for Healthcare Course

This carbon footprinting course will help health professionals, quality improvement leads and medical students to become carbon literate. You will gain an understanding of what a carbon footprint is, how it can be used in the NHS’s endeavour to go net zero and how it is measured.

  • Part I. 4-6 hour Self-study module
  • Part II.  4 hour Live workshop online
  • Part III. Work-in-Progress

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