Sustainability Officer

Dorset County Hospital is committed to achieving the NHS's net zero carbon goals and is growing a Sustainability Team to help it achieve them. We're looking for an individual dedicated to sustainable living to become our Sustainability Officer. Someone whose infectious enthusiasm will inspire staff. and whose extensive knowledge in reducing carbon will support them to implement their ideas.

Now is an exciting time to join Team DCH as work towards net zero carbon and sustainable living is really picking up pace. The scope to make a positive impact is huge - your role will genuinely make a difference.

You'll use your previous experience to empower staff to make changes in their daily roles, with a focus on the following areas:

- Lower carbon clinical pathways
- Travel
- Energy
- Waste
- Water
- Food
- Procurement
- Green spaces
- Adaptation

You need to be experienced and comfortable with engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders. You'll be running communications campaigns, nurturing our network of Sustainability Champions and promoting our Green Plan throughout the Trust.

You’ll need to be carbon literate, experienced in project management and good at writing funding bids and business cases. You’ll be involved in the measurement and monitoring of all aspects of our carbon footprint and reporting this information to our regulators. You’ll support staff to develop their improvement projects and help secure funds to implement them. You’ll be good at identifying the cross-cutting benefits that these projects bring.

You can expect to be working in an exciting and busy environment, every day interacting with different people from across the Trust. The work itself will be varied: from report writing to posting on social media; from managing data on online portals to collecting data direct from the wards; from designing web pages to designing green spaces. We’re looking for someone who will relish this variation.

Please read the full Job Description and Personal Specification for more information.

DCH is an acute hospital serving a large geographical area comprising 250,000 people. Our 3,500 staff provide high quality acute and specialist services. We provide a range of district general services including urgent and emergency care, planned and specialist care, maternity and paediatric services, care for long-term conditions, frailty and end of life care.

Our mission is to offer outstanding care for people in ways which matter to them. We understand the broader environmental context of zero carbon and know that reduced emissions equals reduced admissions. Working within the Integrated Care System, we are at the heart of improving the wellbeing of our communities and are in a strong position to achieve the NHS’s net zero carbon targets.
- Support the Sustainability Manager in delivering the Trust’s Green Plan and other relevant plans eg, the Green Travel Plan and Social Value Action Plan.
- Work closely with internal departments across all areas of the Trust to identify opportunities to reduce carbon.
- Support the teams across the Trust in developing and implementing their carbon reduction projects.
- Support Sustainability Manager in delivering communications relating to the Green Plan to staff, patients and visitors.
- Support the Trust’s Green Plan, using specialist knowledge to identify and resolve highly complex, contentious and sometimes sensitive sustainability (energy, environmental & social change) problems, acting as agent of change to achieve co-operation, buy-in and habitual transformation from staff and colleagues across the whole Trust.
- Interpret and communicate new guidance from Greener NHS and other regulatory bodies.
- Support Waste Coordinator in identifying and delivering initiatives to better manage the Trust’s waste according to the waste hierarchy.
- To identify grants and funding for the development of innovative solutions to achieving sustainability savings.
- Support Sustainability Manager in presenting economic, developmental and or environmental sustainability proposals including business cases to management for funding considerations.
- Assist in the management of external consultants and commissions as required in delivery of carbon efficiency projects.
- Support the management and monitoring of all energy and utilities budgets including recharges where applicable.
- Ensure the Trust remains compliant with NHS data returns and any statutory returns as applicable.
- Point of contact in specialist areas with external providers. For example - utility companies, environment agency, utility regulators, private sector consulting engineering practices, the Department of Trade and Industry and other agencies.
- Attend staff meetings, deliver training to staff and engage with staff as required to inspire and empower them to help deliver the Green Plan.
- Support Sustainability Manager in managing all relevant Trust Green Plan groups/forums/committees.
- Implement an