Sustainability Policy
The leadership is committed to continual and progressive improvement pertaining to the practice’s environmental and sustainability performance.
Our environmental objectives include:
- Commitment to calculating and reducing carbon footprint
- Reducing energy, water, fuel, anaesthetic gases, and other resources or raw materials
- Improving waste management, reducing the overall waste produced, promoting circular economy principles, and using materials with lower environment impact
- Promoting and supporting the uptake of sustainable travel, wherever possible – Enhancing the practice’s social impact
(these commitments are accessible to clients via the practice website and in the surgery)
We have a designated practice sustainability champion.
The practice recognises the importance of veterinary surgeons, nurses and team members being able to make suggestions and raise concerns regarding sustainability improvements that are specific and relevant to our individual practice. Therefore, all members of staff are encouraged to actively identify areas that could be considered for improvement and make their suggestions in written format to be deposited in the sustainability suggestions file, which is then considered by the practice sustainability champion.
The practice aims to schedule visits in the same area for the same day to reduce mileage and save greenhouse gas emissions.
The practice requests that, if clients have unused medications, that these are returned to the practice to be safely disposed of in an appropriate way, thus aiming to avoid clients attempting to dispose of such medications themselves via more environmentally unfriendly methods (e.g. pouring down the sink or black bin disposal).
The practice routinely employs techniques to minimise the usage of anaesthetic gas, such as considering using local and regional anaesthetic where appropriate and optimising the flow rate of gaseous anaesthesia used during procedures. The practice has already phased out Nitrous Oxide fifteen years ago and the practice regularly reviews its general anaesthesia plan, relating to its use of Partial Intravenous Anaesthesia (PIVA) and Total Intravenous Anaesthesia (TIVA) to reduce environmental pollution.
The practice recognises the role of preventative healthcare in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are associated with health treatments and thus provides its clients with resources encouraging them to engage with preventive healthcare initiatives, such as through vaccinations and worming programmes. Further information on preventative healthcare can be found on the practice website.
The practice undertakes a biannual waste survey, and takes environmental and sustainability action based on the analysis of the results yielded from this. These surveys
Conway Road Veterinary Surgery May 2023
involve a review of waste facilities, to ensure presence of adequate recycling bins and clear labelling on different bins of the items that can or cannot be disposed of. Whilst wearing appropriate PPE, domestic and recycling bins are searched to identify the types of waste present, and items most and least present. This information allows us to understand if there are certain waste items that could be disposed of via recycling that is currently in domestic, or assess if certain items that are commonly disposed of can be reduced or reused. Team members are actively engaged with to ensure they understand what items they are disposing of, preventing items that could be disposed of via domestic or recycling bins from being disposed of through clinical waste streams.
Conway Road Veterinary Surgery May 2023
