• Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has unveiled a new Green Plan to drive net zero ambitions
• Green Plan sets out 30 priority actions to take between 2025 and 2030 across 10 focus areas
• Progress under previous plan includes new trees and removing single-use plastic crockery

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has unveiled its new Green Plan to help drive the organisation’s efforts to meet NHS England’s 2045 net zero targets.

The plan sets out 30 priority actions to take between 2025 and 2030 across 10 areas of focus:

• Travel and Transport
• Estates and Facilities
• Food and Nutrition
• Supply chain and Procurement
• Biodiversity and Green Space
• Net Zero Clinical Transformation
• Medicines
• Workforce and Leadership
• Digital Transformation
• Climate adaptation

Priority actions include establishing a multidisciplinary working group responsible for reducing emissions in clinical areas, continuing the move towards a paperless, technology focused hospital and trialing innovative ways to reduce food waste.

In the Green Plan’s foreword, Chief Finance Officer and Net Zero Board Lead at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, Annette Walker, said:

We are committed to delivering continuously improving, sustainable healthcare. My senior leadership colleagues and I are fully behind our Green Plan and to the work involved in the NHS becoming carbon net zero.

“We have already made great progress during the last Green Plan, and the Trust and our staff continue to make small everyday changes to become more sustainable, and through our new Green Plan we will continue to adapt to more environmentally sound practices.

“As a large Trust that touches many areas across Bolton, we have a significant environmental impact, and it is important that we address this now rather than later.

The UK has committed to reaching net zero within the next 25 years and the NHS is aiming to be the world’s first net zero national health service, embedding net zero into legislation and placing duties on all trusts to consider emissions and environmental targets in their decisions.

Healthcare in England is estimated to contribute between 4% and 5% of national carbon emissions, and ambitious strategies are needed to reduce these emissions, and limit the effect of climate change.

Progress made so far

The Trust is already making progress, having made a number of achievements under its previous Green Plan for 2022-2025, including:

• 250 trees planted across the Royal Bolton Hospital site.
• Switched to 100% recycled content paper for all office-based functions.
• All single-use plastic crockery and cutlery was removed.

Since January 2025, the Trust has also secured funding to install solar panels across the hospital, decommission nitrous oxide manifolds, investigate electric vehicle charging for the NHS and iFM fleet, and to prepare a heat decarbonisation plan.

To read the Green Plan in full, please visit Bolton NHS Foundation Trust’s website.