Find out how Acorns Children’s Hospice is embedding environmental sustainability across its services.
Overview and outcomes
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Project overview
In 2024, Acorns Children’s Hospice became one of the first children’s hospices in the UK to launch an ambitious environmental sustainability plan. Entitled Shaping a Better World, the plan sets out a roadmap to reduce Acorns' environmental impact while continuing to deliver high-quality care.
The hospice team developed the plan in partnership with sustainability consultancy Bioregional, who helped them carry out environmental audits of their services and analyse the resulting data. The development process also included in-depth engagement with staff across the organisation through workshops and interviews.
The final plan identifies three core focus areas – People, Purchasing and Planet - outlining measurable goals in each that stretch to 2030 and beyond.
Outcomes
The plan has inspired a number of initiatives across the organisation. This includes the adoption of the NHS Gloves Off campaign. Initially piloted at just one of Acorns' three hospice sites, the campaign encourages more thoughtful use of plastic gloves, so they are only used when necessary, rather than as default.
Since launching, the initiative has seen good uptake from Acorns care team, and has even encouraged colleagues to come forward with other suggestions on where the hospice can reduce plastic usage.
Acorns are also actively exploring energy-saving opportunities within their Birmingham Hospice. With a combination of solar energy and a battery, they are set to become between 73% and 90% off-grid.
They have also carried out a review of waste streams at their three hospice sites to identify opportunities to reduce landfill and move to low-carbon options. They are also making changes in the way they work to reduce their carbon footprint. This includes maximising how they use space across their estate in Care and Retail, and using technology to encourage more flexible working. This will enable Acorns to close their central head office by the end of 2025.
Alongside the operational changes, Acorns are using creative marketing campaigns across their network of charity shops such as ‘Not New, Not Perfect’ and ‘Secondhand, First Choice’. These help to promote sustainable second-hand shopping.
Other initiatives underway include:
improving recycling and composting systems
the establishment of an energy-saving fund
creating rewilding green spaces at each of our hospice sites
providing a toolkit and education to employees and volunteers.
Facilitators, challenges and advice
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Key facilitators
Working with Bioregional gave Acorns access to specialist expertise and helped them make data-led decisions about where to focus efforts for maximum impact. They used a collaborative approach, engaging with departments across the organisation as the plan came together. This ensured that the strategy was not only well-informed, but also embedded in the day-to-day realities of hospice care.
Internally, a cross-organisational steering group has played a crucial role, bringing diverse perspectives to the plan and helping to maintain momentum.
Another key driver has been the formation of the ‘Green Champions’. This group of voluntary representatives from across the organisation, meets monthly and actively ‘champions’ sustainability within their teams and spearheads green initiatives. Though still in its early days, this voluntary network is proving to be an important resource in encouraging peer-led action on sustainability.
Challenges
To date, one of the biggest hurdles has been collecting accurate data to inform the plan. The hospice team underestimated the scale of this task, and it took them a lot longer than planned to collect and analyse all the data.
Despite this, the process was invaluable in helping Acorns understand their starting point and set realistic, impactful goals.
Tips and advice
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Make sure you’re prepared for data collection. Don’t underestimate the time and resource needed to do things properly.
Make the most of staff enthusiasm. Staff and volunteers are often eager to contribute. The Green Champions model has shown how effective this energy can be when given structure and support.
Future development
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Acorns plans to conduct a follow-up data review towards the end of their action plan period. This will help them assess their progress and recalibrate where needed.
They also aim to:
transition to 100% renewable electricity
shift their procurement practices to more sustainable products and suppliers.
