In a year like no other, we are extremely proud of our Green Impact Plus teams, who alongside their busy day jobs, have continued to make important sustainable changes in their lives at home and work. The action taken by our teams includes everything from vegan lunches to reducing single-use plastic in our theatres - all of which helps us get closer to our goal of Net Zero by 2030.
As the year draws to a close, we held a virtual ceremony to celebrate our inspirational colleagues and recognise the fantastic work they have done. By working together, we are able to do amazing work to support healthier communities and healthier lives for NBT staff, patients and loved ones.
Our sustainable development team, who hosted the ceremony, said "We would like to thank all the staff members involved in the Green Impact Plus scheme for continuing to dedicate their extra time and efforts to sustainability improvements in what has been a busy and difficult time."
Find out more about the teams involved and what they got up to in 2021.
Teams who achieved participation awards:
- Bristol Genetics Laboratory
- Haem-Onc All-Stars
- Respiratory
- Gastroenterology
- Hepatology
- Medical Virology/HIV
- Immunology
- Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- Bristol Speech and Language Therapy Unit
- Bristol Centre for Enablement
- General Porters
- BWPC Green Impact Team
Teams who achieved Bronze awards:
Medicine Management – Medicine Division: The Medicine Management team focused on water-saving practices, volunteering at our staff allotment, and taking green pledges.
Pearl Team Community Midwives - Women & Children’s Health Division: The Pearl Team achieved Bronze by encouraging sustainable methods of travel, making time to take walks on their breaks and being advocates for plastic-free sanitary items.
Finance Team – Finance Directorate: This team put up posters and stickers around the office to encourage sustainable behaviour, such as proper waste segregation, and they helped raise awareness of sustainability issues by creating a monthly sustainability newsletter.
The Library Team - People and Transformations Directorate: The Library team supported our Nature Recovery Programme by volunteering at our staff allotment whilst encouraging sustainable travel and reusable travel mugs.
Teams who achieved Silver Awards:
The Perform Team - People & Transformation Directorate: The Perform team organised a vegan group lunch to promote diets with smaller carbon footprints, encouraged taking outdoor walking lunch breaks to support their mental health and received training from the SDU on Sustainable Procurement.
Nuclear Medicine - Core Clinical Services Division: This team advocated for the use of the NBT Explorer Map, signed up to the hospital’s resource reuse website Warp-it and hosted a SDU sustainability training session in their Clinical Governance Training Day.
Medical Photography - Core Clinical Services Division: Medical Photography received training from the SDU on ‘Sustainability in Healthcare’ and started the Carbon Assessment Tool process to help them reduce the teams’ carbon footprint. One member of this team became an Environmental Awareness Representative for NBT.
Teams who achieved Gold awards:
Green Spanners - Hard Facilities Management Services – Facilities Directorate:
The Green Spanners were a brilliant new team this year. They engaged in community outreach when a member of the team organised for her son’s Scout Group to have a session in our NBT green spaces. They encouraged active travel when a team member trialled an electric bike on the one-month bike loan scheme and subsequently started cycling to work every day. A member of this team has committed themselves to continuing to support sustainability at NBT outside of the Green Impact Plus challenge by becoming an Environmental Awareness Representative.
Research & Innovation Green Impact Team - Research & Strategy Directorate:
The Research & Innovation team took on the challenges of the Green Impact Plus programme and then went above and beyond to win the BEST NEW TEAM Award! R&I organised a Vegan Lunch Week and shared the recipes across the whole division, along with photographs of all the wonderful food those in the team were making. They worked hard to increase awareness and understanding of key sustainability issues throughout R&I by creating their own sustainability news bulletin and organising for the SDU to deliver a training session on waste created by electrical items. A member of this team worked with the Senior Leadership Team of R&I to create a 'sustainability pledge' for the staff appraisal system. The R&I team are a wonderful passionate group of NBT staff members who are a great example to us all.
The Extra Mile Award Winners: Blood, Sweat &Tea – Theatres – ASCR Division
Blood, Sweat & Tea won The Extra Mile Award for achieving sustainability improvements far beyond what we had asked them to do. They improved their kitchen area by having clear waste segregation signs and a collection area for coffee granules to be stored before being taken home by staff to use in their composting. They supported a Lights Out initiative, which encourages people to switch off the lights in the theatres at the end of the day. They created a system for stopping countless AAA batteries from going to waste after being used once in single-use Laryngoscopes. Now, these batteries are collected and distributed freely to whoever wants them. Another great change this team made was moving from buying hundreds of single-use cardboard pulp trays that were thrown away after every use to a few plastic trays which can be decontaminated and reused for many years to come. This teams commitment and ingenuity is inspiring and well worthy of being our Extra Mile Award winners.
NBT’s Green Space Volunteer Hero: Elaine Beckett - The Library Team - People and Transformations Directorate
This award was given in recognition of Elaine Beckett volunteering the most hours on our allotment of any NBT staff member in 2021. Elaine’s dedication supports our Nature Recovery Programme and helps to make our site a more biodiverse-rich, healthier, and happier place to be.
The Greener Knowledge Award: Medical Photography - Core Clinical Services Division
This award was given in recognition of the entire Medical Photography team taking the ‘Introduction to Sustainability’ MLE training package and receiving virtual training from the SDU team on ‘Sustainability in Healthcare’.
All the Green Impact Plus teams and those individuals around the Trust who supported sustainability in 2021 have worked incredibly hard to improve sustainable practices in their workplaces and promote sustainable healthcare throughout the Trust. We look forward to building on this work in 2022.