Our Collaborative Sustainability Work

The climate crisis effects all those alive today, and we're better able to combat it when we work together.

We often work with partner organisations on our sustainabilty projects, and you can find more here.

UK Health Alliance on Climate Change

In November 2021 we joined the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC), an alliance of UK-based health organisations representing about 1 million health professionals.

They coordinate action, provide leadership, and amplify the voice of health professionals across the UK. Their work is focussed on three key areas; raising awareness, empowering people and influencing change.

In 2023 they launched their committments for health organisations, of which the Society is a signatory, and we're working hard to make sure we meet each one.

The Intensive Care Sustainability Recipe Book

In April 2024, we were thrilled to announce that we, alongside the University of Brighton, Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and UK Critical Care Nursing Alliance, were awarded funding to produce ‘The Intensive Care Sustainability Recipe Book’ – a ‘how to’ manual of sustainable intensive care practice: the carbon footprint of all elements of our work, and how these can be reduced.

The project will be hosted by the University of Brighton, with significant contribution from the Society, the Faculty and the Alliance, and support from a large group of advisors working in critical care all over the UK. It will include supporting a Research Fellow in Sustainable Intensive Care in the development of the Recipe Book.

For more information about the project you can contact our team at communicationsteam@ics.ac.uk.

ANZICS: A Beginner's Guide to Sustainability in the ICU

We've endorsed the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society's (ANZICS) Beginners Guide to Sustainability Toolkit. It provides practical solutions and suggestions that intensive care units can implement to help reduce their carbon emissions. It collates ideas and actions you can take, no matter what your profession, to contribute to a sustainable future for intensive care. deal with this problem.

Critical Care Susnet

The Intensive Care Society and the British Association of Critical Care Nurses (BACCN) are proud to endorse the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s (CSH) Critical Care Susnet.

The Susnet is a network where those working in intensive care can come together to share their sustainability-focussed projects and ideas. We are strongest and most effective when working together, which is why the British Association of Critical Care Nurses and the Intensive Care Society are delighted to announce our endorsement of the platform. Many useful resources are already available via the Susnet, to help our community tackle climate change, and we look forward to seeing this expand in the future.

Sharing Hours

As part of the Critical Care Susnet we support bi-monthly Sharing Hours hosted by Heather Baid, one of our Sustainabilty Working Group members.

These hours are open to anyone working across the multi-professional team in intensive care and are designed facilitate the sharing of ideas and sustainability projects in our specialty all over the UK and beyond. With a variety of guests on hand to take questions and share their work, these Sharing Hours are a great way to get inspired for your next project.

Keep an eye out here, or on our social media channels to find out when we'll be hosting the next Sharing Hour and how you can register.

Our Carbon Footprint

Sustainabilty is a critical enabler of our 2023-27 Strategy, which determines all our work now and in the future. As part of this strategy we've committed to calculating our Scope 1 and 2 carbon footprint, so that we can identify our hotspots and what we can do to reduce them.

This work will be underway during 2023, and we're looking forward to reporting on our findings as soon as the project is complete. We'll be using the figures we find to help us meet our commitment or reucing our carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.

But Scope 1 and 2 is just the beginning, we'll also be undertaking a Scope 3 analysis, which we aim to complete by the end of 2024, to make sure we've factored in all our emissions, including those associated with our State of the Art Congress..

The project is a large and complex one, but it's vital to us achieving the commitments in our strategy and to meeting our sustainability goals.

Your Carbon Footprint

The best place to start if you'd like to minimise your carbon footprint, is to understand what it's made up of. We're calculating ours to help us determine what changes we can make to reduce our impact on the planet. And you can calculate yours too!

The WWF environmental footprint calculator tool is easy to use and can help you understand the impact your daily choices have on the environment, like food, travel, your home, and the things you buy. It's a great place to start if you're not sure how you can start to make difference.