CAFE Winter 2025 Report

Café update for Members 2025 - Written by Dr Sarah Bartlett

I write this as COP30 starts in Brazil. It is clear now that we will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming within a decade, which will have wide ranging implications on human health. (The world is likely to exceed a key global warming target soon. Now what? )

However, renewables have just overtaken coal as the biggest global electricity source – mainly in China. We must hope the tide will turn. Renewables overtake coal as world's biggest source of electricity - BBC News. 

 We are making progress addressing the impact of healthcare on climate change here too, (on a much smaller scale!)

Since the Winter 2024 Update I am pleased to report 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: HowTo-PPBF16.09.25.pdf.  Menu adjustment is an ongoing process: We no longer serve beef at the College, and we have improved our vegetarian offering – to the extent that we are hoping to phase out non vegetarian sandwiches altogether on small event sandwich platters. We no longer use disposable plates and have switched to pints of milk in place of single portions of UHT.   
3. Footprint: We are moving closer to being able to start carbon accounting – this will be a huge step forward for the college as without this data we cannot identify areas for improvement. 

Education

• Participated in Colleges One Health Series : (Environment and One Health | Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh)
• Updated the 10 Things free online resource (Course: 10 things a doctor can do to combat climate change | RCPE)  and collaborated with NHS Education with a view to improving postgraduate access to Climate Change and Health resources.
• Contributed to a special edition of the Young Geographer magazine Young Geographer’s Investigate Health in a Changing Climate | The Royal Scottish Geographical Society 

Policy 

• We were pleased to see SIGN put forward a position statement on sustainability at the NHS Net Zero Conference in September. Their aim is to consider the environmental impact alongside cost and efficacy of interventions in new guidelines.
• As members of the UKHACC (UK Health Alliance on Climate Change) 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 suggested scrapping of the Climate Change Act:  Scrapping the Climate Change Act would be an act of self-harm that condemns this and future generations to unnecessary suffering – UK Health Alliance on Climate Change  and a manifesto for the new Scottish Government to highlight the importance of Climate Change for Health.
• We remain committed members of the UK Health Alliance for Climate Change and our colleague Prof Jill Belch continues in her role as Trustee with the UKHACC. 

We are always keen to hear new voices and perspectives and would welcome attendance at our meetings, currently held twice a year. If you would like to get involved, contact Dani Cleeland.