CAFE Announcement

Announcement from the CAFE Committee

Dear All 

I have the pleasure of announcing Professor Jill Belch as the incoming Chair of the College Advisory Forum on the Environment (CAFE). 

I will be stepping down after 3 years at the helm – it is time for new ideas and a fresh pair of eyes. I will maintain in contact and will attend future meetings, but I will no longer be a regular presence due to competing commitments. 

As part of our handover, Professor Belch requested I share a summary of work done so far with members. Following on from this, we would like to invite you to guide us towards our next direction. 

When I took up the Chair, I sent out a survey to you all and used your answers to inform the work of the group. This was very helpful, and I thank all those of you who took part. The Environment is a very broad concept, and we needed to know where RCPE members saw the priorities to focus our work. The results were as follows: 

Using this as a guide, we did the following: 

College Infrastructure

  1. Energy: The college switched to a renewable energy provider, which will have removed a significant proportion of our Scope 2 emissions (GGP) and will contribute to the UK renewable energy sector.
  2. Menu: We support the UKHACC plant based diet strategy.  Menu adjustment is an ongoing process and we have improved our vegetarian offering. We no longer use disposable plates and have switched to pints of milk in place of single portions of UHT.   
  3. Travel: We reviewed the College travel policy ensuring facilities to support active travel are available and public transport options are highlighted and encouraged. Many College events are hybrid or online to minimise travel. 

Education

 

Policy 

  • As members of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC) we have signed letters to NICE, GMC and MRHA encouraging commitment to sustainable practice, education, and publishing of environmental data for new drugs. UKHACC published a letter to Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch in response to the suggested scrapping of the Climate Change Act and a manifesto for the new Scottish Government to highlight the importance of Climate Change for Health.
  • We were able to commit to the 11 commitments of the UKHACC. This means that we intend to be able to enact these recommendations, although we haven’t yet managed all of them. Carbon footprinting, so important to establish a baseline from which we can improve, and disinvesting from fossil fuels/banks both remain work in progress and Professor Belch is just the person to take this forward! 
  • Prof Belch became a trustee of the UKHACC ensuring that our voice and that of RCPE members is represented in the alliance. 

Air Pollution subgroup

This group focusses on Air Pollution and continues to be busy raising awareness about the health harms of poor air quality, both at Government level (Holyrood and Westminster) and also with the public. 

Our schools project, having shown less than 2% of city schools have an air quality monitor near them, has now reached the stage of seeking funding for a 2 year project to place such monitors round our city schools to ensure we know our children are not being polluted. 

Funding was achieved for the purchase of 8 portable air quality monitors. One of these has been piloted as a Citizens Science project at a school in Edinburgh. Now, with one of the teacher’s Unions, we are about to investigate air quality in school buses in some Scottish cities.

We have also focussed on answering consultations with evidence-based replies. These have included a call by Westminster to comment on their stance regarding electric vehicles (EVs), and an assessment of the draft Climate Change plan by the Scottish Government which resulted in one of us being called to Holyrood to give evidence to the Government’s Health and Social Care Committee. Recently we have completed the English and Welsh Consultations on air quality regulations, and DEFRA’s 4 Nation consultation on Domestic wood burning and air quality in the home. Our responses to these consultations can be seen on the RCPE ‘Consultation Responses’ part of the website.

Additionally, two of our members have been invited to sit in the Scottish Government’s Air Quality Advisory Committee, where we hope to provide the evidence base for further improving air quality in Scotland. 

Finally, we have been invited to a number of Holyrood meetings to present our work and evidence, as well as receiving invites for presentations on air pollution to various Scottish Groups.

Yours faithfully 

Sarah 

If you interested in the environment or sustainability and would like to help implement change within and outside of the College, please complete the CAFE application form. If you have any queries please contact d.cleeland@rcpe.ac.uk