1. DATE FOR YOUR DIARY
Health and Sustainability Network workshop -Tackling Climate Change
20th March 2009 in Sheffield
In partnership with the NHS Sustainable Development Unit, Climate Connection, and The Climate and Health Council
As mentioned in the last newsletter, we are planning another workshop for members of the network and colleagues, on the 20th March. We intend to make this highly participatory, to give an opportunity for sharing our hopes and fears, what’s positive, the challenges and how we can overcome them, and to offer mutual support. There will be only a modest fee for attendance. Further information will follow at the end of January. Here is the draft programme.
Advocacy
2. Please sign the Climate and Health Council Pledge – www.climateandhealth.org/pledge
At the UN conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, an agreement must be secured from all member states to a post-Kyoto international framework. The Climate and Health Council (co-chaired by Robin Stott and Mike Gill) is working hard to ensure that the voice of health professionals is heard well and loudly in the negotiations. They are asking us all to express our support by signing their pledge. Please click on www.climateandhealth.org/pledge and ask your colleagues to do the same. They have a target of at least 10,000 health professionals to be signed up by March 2009. In phase II, they will initiate a public campaign: “10,000 UK doctors and health professionals are signatories to a declaration that urgent government-led international action on climate change is essential to the health and survival of this and future generations.”
NHS and public health
3. NHS Sustainable Development Unit
Please do continue to give support to David Pencheon, the Director of the NHS Sustainable Development Unit (david.pencheon@sdu.nhs.uk) – he needs to know that we need NHS carbon reduction targets integrated into the NHS Operating Framework and Vital Signs. This was a key message from a workshop that was run in Kent last month. The SDU is currently preparing the final version of the NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy, following the consultation in the summer. It is planned that a revised, more NHS-oriented, version of the Faculty of Public Health’s guide, Sustaining a Healthy Future: Taking Action on Climate Change will be published at the same time, in partnership with the SDU and the NHS Confederation.
4. The Climate Connection – National Launch
The Climate Connection is a new partnership for public health action on climate change, supported by the Faculty of Public Health, the UK Public Health Association, the Health Protection Agency, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the NHS Sustainable Development Unit and the Department of Health. Frances Mortimer and Muir Gray have been commissioned to manage The Climate Connection, and it was formally launched at an event in London on 2 December. There was a strong focus on leadership through regional networks. Their website is www.theclimateconnection.org.uk, and includes a witty section on the management of the carbon dependence syndrome – the Carbon Addict.
5. Mapping Greener Healthcare in the South East
Funded by the South East Public Health Group in partnership with South East Coast and South Central Strategic Health Authorities, the Campaign for Greener Healthcare has been commissioned to map activities in sustainable development and good corporate citizenship across all NHS organisations in the South East. The mapping will include energy use, water use, travel planning, procurement, sustainable building, waste management and community involvement. A website has been established, http://map.greenerhealthcare.org, to enable Trusts in the Region to enter their projects online and share their learning with each other. The work is being led by Jackie Spiby, one of the founders of the Health and Sustainable Development Network.
Events
6. Friday 6 February 2009: Royal Society of Medicine, London: Unravelling the Paradoxes: Economic Recession, Sustainable Development and Health
Giovanni Leonardi at the Health Protection Agency has organised the above conference on the links between sustainable development, environmental health inequalities and the economy, which promises to be extremely interesting and highly relevant. For more information, email epidemiology@rsm.ac.uk or go to the events section on www.roysocmed.ac.uk
Resources
7. The Essential Guide to Travel Planning
We have just uploaded on to our website http://www.healthandsustainability.net/24.html produced by the Department for Transport in association with the National Business Travel Network, in March 2008, which you should find very helpful. A good place to check on how you are doing is the list of ‘Travel Plan Essentials’ on page 10.
8. The new politics of climate change – why we are failing and how we will succeed
The Green Alliance has published an incisive new pamphlet, written by its Director, Stephen Hale. Noting that ultimately only government has the power to avert catastrophic climate change, and highlighting the major structural and cultural barriers to governmental action on the scale required, the report makes a strong case for the third sector to lead a new push to achieve political action. The report can be downloaded at www.green-alliance.org.uk. Its analysis is thought-provoking and it is a powerful call to action.
Information
9. Meat consumption and CO2 emissions
As you all know, livestock generate about 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The United Nations say that reducing meat consumption would have more effect on carbon emissions than switching to a hybrid car. The Lancet medical journal and the Food Ethics Council have supported eating less red meat, and have noted the health benefits. Producing a pound of beef creates 11 times as much GHG emission as a pound of chicken, and 100 times more than a pound of carrots. The UK Public Health Association have consulted their members and decided that catering at next year’s Annual Forum will be entirely vegetarian.
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Don’t forget to send us your news and views – this is your newsletter! And in particular give us your ideas for the next network event and send us your stories of living more sustainably.
Best wishes Alison and Jenny
Health and Sustainable Development Network Newsletter January 2009