This week’s leadership message comes from Hawarun Hussain, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s Senior Net Zero Programme Manager, who talks about the part we can all play in tackling climate change and building more sustainable healthcare

Hello, my name is Hawarun.

A year ago I was very excited to be appointed Net Zero Programme Manager for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership. 12 months on I still get the flutter of excitement to wake up every morning and look forward to work.

I feel blessed to work with some of the most incredible colleagues, both within the NHS and our system partners. Colleagues who are dedicated to both reducing the environmental impact of their work and ensuring that we build the necessary resilience for a future impacted by climate change. 

How my interest in sustainability grew

I joined the NHS over 20 years ago, starting out in health promotion and health education. Later, I trained in public health, specialising in obesity. Although this cemented my belief in prevention, in reducing the incidence of ill health to support healthier lifestyles and tackle sustainability issues, my interest stemmed from a much earlier age. Back in the 1980s, as a child I became aware of the Greenpeace campaign against whaling which made me question what on earth was happening ‘out there’. Another stark moment was when I was promoting ‘walk for health’ in the early 2000s and realised that air quality was becoming a real issue.

My aspiration is to be a leader in the field of sustainability and net zero for health improvement either via public health or via commissioning in terms of service provision. Armed with my experience in collaborative partnership working across the statutory, voluntary, community, faith and education sectors, I encourage people to take action on reducing our carbon footprint. I believe we all have the skills and expertise in our respective fields and I work to draw that out, elevate it to the fore and give it a platform to help make a real positive difference to people’s lives and to the world we live in.

Outside work, I am a Director of Bradford Trident, a multi-million-pound community charity. I also sit on the board of the fabulous Saltaire Festival organising one weekend festival for around 40 thousand people to enjoy. Moreover, I am the Bradford volunteer for the Refill Campaign which promotes alternatives to single use plastic. All local charities which have social and environmental responsibility embedded into their constitutions and whose enthusiasm for reducing their impact on the environment is profound.

Climate change is everyone’s responsibility

My passion for tackling climate change led me to standing in the 2004 local elections  when I was elected as a local councillor representing the Green Party. For 14 years I worked in a highly tense political arena as deputy party leader with other political parties with sometimes very different views and ideas. I’m proud that I worked to persuade others and support them in making informed decisions on sustainability and the net zero agenda, in ways that would benefit the local population.

I believe that in the last few years even the most cynical individuals are now clearly seeing the destructive effects of climate change, whether it is the alarming heatwave pushing the UK to over 40°C last year, the horrendous wildfires in Australia, or the dreadful flooding in Pakistan.

The frighteningly lethal trend in the rise of heatwaves has potentially catastrophic consequences for agricultural and worldwide food supplies. Heat-humidity combinations are being pushed into realms where human survival is threatened in some countries. Across the world we will potentially see more people dying or being forced from their native countries.

For me, this is the work of our lives and it is the responsibility of all of us in the health and care sector and beyond to pull together to meet this climate crisis head on.  We owe it to us, our children and future generations.

It is my genuine belief that the only way we can avoid the worst of the consequences of climate change, is for us to get actively involved and become a critical mass of people who are doing and demanding change.

About net zero

Net zero is about negating the amount of greenhouse gases we produce by reducing emissions and implementing ways of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. On 1 July 2022, the NHS became the first health system in the world to have net zero embedded into legislation, through the Health and Care Act 2022. The guidance states how we will meet this new duty through the delivery of localised green plans, and how every trust and integrated care board in the country will have a board-level net zero lead.

In West Yorkshire, we were way ahead of our time with many comparable organisations in our thinking and commitment to taking action against climate change. Nearly five years ago, we identified our 10 big ambitions to meet the healthcare needs of our region, one of which was:

“We aspire to become a global leader in responding to the climate emergency through increased mitigation, investment and culture change throughout our system” 

We laid out our intentions in our Sustainability Strategy and Green Plan.

Huge strides on a long journey

Although we’ve made huge strides, for example, removing investments from fossil fuel companies and using less material, energy and water when developing homes, we have a long way to go and the need is becoming more urgent.

This YouTube clip, aired by The Lancet, insists that the medical community must respond to climate change. To help speed up positive change, we have set up a number of communities of practice to aid collective learning, encourage innovation, develop, deliver and implement actions. We want to celebrate the difference we are making in our communities on a regional and national level – and most importantly ensure that this is applied to all who live in West Yorkshire.

There are some fantastic initiatives happening like our green social prescribing activities, PenCycle, where people can recycle their diabetes, weight management and growth hormone treatment Novo Nordisk pre-filled pens and a commitment to stop using desflurane – an anaesthetic gas used in surgery. We’ve held climate change lunch and learns about a whole range of topics and carbon literacy training too.

All hands in for a better future

Our all hands in campaign is all about committing to making fundamental changes to the way we work, through increased investment, mitigation, and culture change throughout our health and care system. It’s been great to be involved in the campaign which encourages all 100,000 plus colleagues working in health and care across our region to pledge to make changes to everyday actions.

Have a look at what your colleagues have pledged and renew or make your own. There are some fabulous examples, like buying more second-hand clothes, using park and ride schemes, taking home soft plastic to recycle. Things like turning off equipment and lights when they’re not in use, opting for meat free Mondays and more plant-based meals, consuming less plastic packaged products, or changing the way you get to work might seem like a drop in the ocean, but the greatest challenges are best tackled when we all make small changes, together.

10 top tips

Here are 10 top tips and easy things which we can all do:

1. Eat more fruit and veg
2. Ensure your energy supplier provides renewable electricity
3. Take 30 minutes of exercise outdoors
4. Reduce one piece of plastic every day
5. Talk about sustainability with your friends and family
6. Ask your bank what they are doing about climate change
7. Join the conversation about climate change on social media
8. Lobby politicians and opinion leaders
9. Shop in your wardrobe first
10. Use public transport as a first option

Find out more

I hope this blog has given you some inspiration. You can read more about our ambitions and achievements on our climate change pages and also in the following publications:

• The Sustainability Strategy
• West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Green Plan 2022-2025 
• West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation Green Plan
• Green Plan - Primary Care in West Yorkshire

And finally – please do watch the BBC documentary presented by the awesome Sir David Attenborough (if you have a TV licence of course). However, be warned, it’s not easy viewing.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend,
Hawarun