Green campus & sustainability

Our vision

As a paediatric healthcare provider CHI has a legal and moral responsibility to take action against climate change by adopting sustainable practices which lead to significant reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). The Green Campus programme is in place to engage the whole of CHI’s staff and wider stakeholders in a long term commitment to sustainability within CHI.

The vision for CHI is to provide a health service that provides the highest quality care to our patients without compromising planetary health.
Patients will be cared for a hospital that is environmentally conscious and efficient in its operations, boosts biodiversity, supports circularity in its supply chain and is a leader at community, national and international levels in addressing the impacts of climate change.
All CHI staff, students and contractors are required to co-operate and support CHI’s Sustainability and Carbon Management Policy. Our families, patients and communities will be fundamental in helping us achieve our vision.

Page contents

On this page you will find information about:

Our vision
Our achievements
An Taisce Green Campus
Additional information

Our achievements

CHI won silver at the Healthcare without Harm Climate Action Awards in 2022. CHI was awarded for its climate resilience and leadership.
CHI won sustainable project of the year at the IHEEM 2022 conference

An Taisce Green Campus

CHI recognises our patients are passionate about climate action and protecting our planet. Many of our patients would have engaged with the ‘An Taisce Green Schools’ programmes through their primary and secondary education. An Taisce run a green campus programme, born from green schools, for third level education institutions and hospitals. CHI registered on the ‘An Taisce Green Campus Programme’ in September 2022 and will work towards achieving ‘Green Flag status’ by 2024. The programme requires 18-24 months of work on improving a combination of An Taisce’s sustainability themes with CHI focusing on Litter and Waste and Energy improvement for our initial assessment period.

More information on the Green Flag programme can be found here.

Additional information

Ireland declared a climate emergency in 2019 with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. The subsequent national Climate Action Plan (2021) sets a mandated target of a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for the public sector by 2030, setting us on a path to reach Net-Zero emissions by no later than 2050.

The Climate Action Plan also sets out a number of decarbonisation targets for the public sector which must be achieved by 2030, including a 50% improvement in energy efficiency, a 51% reduction in energy-related GHGs and a requirement that all public buildings must have improved Building Energy Rating (BER)[1]. In order to achieve the new 2030 and 2050 targets, the HSE has established a Climate Action & Sustainability Office within the HSE Estates and Capital Department. The objectives of the HSE Climate Action and Sustainability Office are to develop a scalable model for energy management and retrofit investment in the HSE’s building stock in the achievement of national policy targets.

CHI will follow the guidance of The HSE Capital & Estates departments; ‘Infrastructure Decarbonisation Implementation Plan 2022’. Similarly, CHI will follow the guidance of the HSE Climate Action and Sustainability Office in their Climate Action strategic goals of;

Addressing and improving energy efficiency
Progressing water conservation projects
Improving the scope 3 emissions associated with building of HSE Estates through the adoption of ‘Modern Methods of Construction’
Optimising circular economy principles to construction, design, commissioning and operations
Exploring how Electric Vehicles (EV’s) can be utilised by the organisation in its operations.

[1] Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (2021), Climate Action Plan. Retrieved from: https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/6223e-climate-action-plan-2021/

CHI will contribute to national level working groups on sustainability within the healthcare sector, utilising the expertise of our staff to collaboratively inform national policy. CHI’s will collaborate with the HSE Climate Action and Sustainability Office and have a representative with the Department of Health on all matters of sustainability. CHI commits itself to meeting the 2030 target of a net reduction in emissions of 51% of 2016-2018 averages. In doing so, we will make improvements by implementing more sustainable practices in procurement and waste, driving better building performance (in existing and new buildings) and in active travel and transport solutions.

As part of the Climate Action Plans each public sector body will need to provide annual Climate Action Roadmaps.

All public sector bodies are also required to report their energy consumption to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) Monitoring and Reporting platform.

PDF

Climate action plan 2023

5.7 MB