NHS Wales decarbonisation strategic delivery plan 2025 to 2030 - Part 1: Foreword

Four years since the publication of the first NHS Wales Decarbonisation Strategic Delivery Plan in March 2021, the climate emergency remains today one of the greatest health challenges of our time with evidence on the impacts to population health and the health system only growing.

This refreshed NHS Wales Decarbonisation Strategic Delivery Plan reaffirms NHS Wales’s commitment to reducing its environmental impact. It sets out a clear roadmap for meeting our collective climate ambitions and aims to support organisations in prioritising the action needed to position NHS Wales to achieve the 2050 Net Zero legislative target.

This plan forms an integral part of the wider transformation to deliver ‘A Healthier Wales’ our long-term plan for the health and social care system. That vision for ‘A Healthier Wales’ focuses on prevention and local delivery, both central pillars of a low-carbon health system. ‘A Healthier Wales’ also commits organisations to embedding action on the climate emergency in decision-making and plans across the health and social care system; this refreshed plan identifies the priority actions needed to support NHS Wales in fulfilling that commitment.

The plan is focused on helping NHS Wales:

• strengthen energy efficiency and increase use of renewables
• support more sustainable travel across our fleet and by staff and patients
• work with our suppliers to minimise their environmental impact, including through greater use of circular economy principles
• deliver environmental sustainability as part of our existing value-based approach to clinical delivery
• become more efficient with a stronger focus on eliminating all types of waste
• maximise the co-benefits to patients, to staff, on our finances and to the communities we work within from working as sustainably as possible

This plan aligns with the adaptation action needed to build resilience to the impacts of climate change we are already seeing including from more extreme weather events. Organisations are expected to take an integrated approach, taking into consideration the need to mitigate against future climate risks as we decarbonise, and ensuring our adaptation action is as low carbon as possible.

We are building on the strong foundations of the progress already made and lessons learned across NHS Wales. It has been developed through extensive engagement, drawing on the expertise, innovation, and dedication of staff and partners across NHS Wales. I would like to thank everyone who has supported the refresh and to colleagues taking the lead on this agenda.

The plan and its targets remain ambitious, and I recognise the challenging context within which we are working. Some actions will require financial investment at a time when financial resources are already stretched. However, we cannot shy away from the level of ambition needed if we are to achieve a lower carbon health system and deliver challenging climate targets. A collaborative approach is essential, with this plan providing the mandate for all parts of the health system to come together to pool resources, find, spread and scale creative solutions and collectively take the next step towards a more sustainable health system.

Jacqueline Totterdell
Director General Health, Social Care and Early Years Group and NHS Wales Chief Executive