How we’re supporting health and care to tackle the climate crisis
Published on 26 April 2024
The NMC has launched its first Environmental Sustainability Plan, aiming to influence the health and care sector, which accounts for over four percent of the UK’s total carbon emissions, to play its part in responding to the climate crisis.
The NMC launched its first Environmental Sustainability Plan on 6 March 2024.
Since publishing, we were made aware of a miscalculation in our past carbon emissions which resulted in them being overstated. This has been corrected and will ensure that the baseline for future updates is more accurate.
This plan is part of our commitment to promote sustainable practice among professionals on our register, reduce our environmental impact as an organisation, and to build our resilience to climate risks.
Our register includes every UK nurse, midwife and nursing associate, giving us direct reach to more than 808,000 people. We’ll develop resources supporting professionals to practise in a sustainable way, and set out expectations around this in a future update to the Code.
Internally, we are focussing our initial efforts on making environmental sustainability part of our core business activities, from our estate and our travel to our investments. As an organisation, we aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and net zero by 2040.
The full set of commitments, and our plan to achieve them, can be found on our website.
Andrea Sutcliffe, NMC Chief Executive and registrar, said:
“One of the most affecting moments in my time at the NMC was speaking to Rosamund, the mother of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah who, after sadly dying at age nine, was the first person in the world to have air pollution cited as a cause of death.
“Her tragic death and Rosamund’s campaign about the health impacts of air pollution reinforce the essential connection between our aim to improve everyone’s health and wellbeing and our responsibility to address environmental issues.
“We know this issue is important to nurses, midwives and nursing associates, and we want to be leading the way in encouraging and supporting sustainable change across the sector, for the benefit of both the professionals on our register and the people they care for, for generations to come.”
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