DHB reducing its carbon footprint
Northland DHB’s Carbon Footprint and Year Overview 2016-17 report has highlighted a number of successes, the most significant a nine per cent reduction in its carbon footprint compared with the previous financial year.
The DHB says it is well on its way to achieving its goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 15 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2016).
Last financial year fleet fuels overtook gas as the largest greenhouse gas emission category. Most categories under which CO2e emissions were measured had had a significant decline. The biggest reduction was stationary diesel (for boilers that heat water and air), a direct result of replacing the diesel boiler at Dargaville Hospital with electric heat pumps, saving 51,000 litres of diesel over the year.
The biggest contributor in the Transportation of Goods and Patients category was a seven per cent (226,000km) reduction in national travel assistance claims by patients, who in the main had had to travel to Auckland hospital.
Fleet fuel consumption had fallen by three per cent, almost 20,000 litres.
One area where the DHB was not performing well was waste to landfill. That increased seven per cent, an additional of 53 tonnes. Construction waste from the Bay of Islands Hospital redevelopment work was largely responsible for that, but increases in delivery of services, staff and patient numbers had also been factored in.
A reduction in emissions in electricity was largely due to a greener national grid. The DHB’s electricity consumption rose three per cent, which was fairly consistent with the trend of the last couple of years.
Energy audits were performed at the DHB’s hospitals late last year to compile a responsive plan around electricity consumption, and a collaboration agreement had been signed with the EECA.
Six electric vehicles, including the patient shuttle bug at Whangarei Hospital, had been added to the fleet, and generic and e-bikes are to be introduced, while recycling programmes for medical products such as IV bags, oxygen masks, tubing and anaesthetic bottles have been implemented.