We’re pleased to work with South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust who are continuing to build on their commitment to social responsibility and sustainability with the recent launch of the green team. The team, consisting of over 250 colleagues, will inspire positive change to local communities and the lives of colleagues, service users, volunteers, and carers. They will help the trust to identify ways of becoming more sustainable, support and deliver projects, and motivate others to change behaviours and daily habits to make a difference.
Sustainability change manager Tony Wright said: “We’re delighted to officially launch the green team and have been overwhelmed by the response of colleagues. I am thankful for the fantastic support and enthusiasm from our Trust Board and senior colleagues to help us achieve our aim to become a truly socially responsible and sustainable organisation.
“The green team is a diverse group of like-minded staff members and volunteers from various roles and locations, with a passion for social responsibility and sustainability and an eagerness to help make positive change. Colleagues can introduce their own initiatives, influence their teams or services, or suggest ideas or projects which could be shared across the trust. They will be key drivers in the delivery of our social responsibility and sustainability improvements.”
Following the launch of the trust’s social responsibility and sustainability strategy (SRS) in July 2022, lots of work has taken place. The SRS is now a golden thread through all of the strategic priorities and everything the trust does. The SRS identified five areas as headline initiatives and areas of focus to be delivered in partnership with staff, service users and their families and carers. These are:
- Partnerships, culture, and civic role
- Role as an employer
- Procurement of goods and services
- Management of environmental impacts, estates, and assets
- Engagement with less advantaged and diverse communities to maximise the responsiveness, value, inclusiveness, and uptake of services
Tony added: “The overall aims of the SRS strategy are to deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits and reduce health inequalities. As part of our efforts to achieve this, we have looked to deliver sustainable projects such as the upcoming launch of our staff eBikes scheme - allowing colleagues to loan one of four eBikes, our estates and facilities colleagues ensuring that none of our waste goes to landfill, and the planting of 2,000 trees in our Fieldhead and Kendray hospital sites to support development of Net Zero Carbon Road Map (The Green Plan).
“Further examples of excellent work people have done include the Mental Health Museum who last year won an Excellence award for their ‘Our Green Year’ project; and one of our estates colleagues who won an 'Our Health Heroes' award for her work to make recruitment processes more socially responsible and sustainable.
“We’re also delighted to be the first ever trust to use the sustainability impact assessment (SIA) as recommended by West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership as part of organisational change process with the older people’s transformation programme, whilst also developing a wide range of partnership relationships and signing up for initial exploratory stages of Wakefield heat network.”
More information on the social responsibility and sustainability initiatives, including the strategy and latest updates, can be found on the trust's website.