#5 Small actions really do have a big impact
Jenny Fry, Senior Library Assistant, The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust
After a slightly delayed train journey from the Midlands, I luckily made it to the British Library Knowledge centre in time for the first keynote of the day from Baroness Natalie Bennett. The Baroness really set the tone for the day with a very hopeful message, it was an inspiring way to start the conference. She even mentioned NHS libraries and talked about engaging NHS staff at all levels, porters and secretary’s, not just doctors and nurses, and asked us to think about how we can make our institutions feel like they are for everyone. I think this is an important point to remember when we can be often focussed on the needs of clinicians, there are so many other staff in the NHS that we are perfectly poised to be able to serve just in a slightly different way that we may have been used to.
Greener Procurement
I attended parallel session two: From the Ground Up: Greener procurement, collections, creation and care. I was particularly interested in this session as our Trust uses BetterWorld Books to dispose of our withdrawn books. It was great to hear from Martin Mullen that the company is really committed to sustainability and some of the greener measures that they have implemented such as motion sensor lighting and going paperless for their orders. I can’t say I had previously given much thought to the books that we box up and send off to BetterWorld Books but it was a great to think that we have played a part in the 38 miles of books that the company has saved in the last year in the UK. It was also great to hear that they don’t donate any books that they wouldn’t be happy to sell.
Nicky Philpott from NHS England talked about the Greener NHS programme which has an ambitious target of delivering a carbon net zero NHS. We heard how climate change has a direct impact on the NHS, for example more heatwaves means more A&E visits. The NHS produces 5% of the carbon in the UK. Linking nicely to what Jon had talked about, Nicky spoke about the NHS supply chain, the NHS uses over 80,000 different suppliers and how important it is to also consider the sustainability of all of these different suppliers. I was a little disappointed to hear that there wasn’t any information from the Greener NHS programme relating to libraries, just another reminder that there is still more work to be done for us NHS library staff in promoting our services to all levels and sectors of the NHS.
I was particularly interested to learn that 9% of the NHS carbon is from digital services, that’s a higher percentage than is produced from food in the NHS. Going paperless is great, but it doesn’t mean no carbon! There was also discussion around data clean up, extra unnecessary files take up so much space and produce a lot of carbon.
Library Map of the World
Next up we heard from Dr Petra Hauke about the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Environment, Sustainability and Libraries Section (ENSULIB) group. She talked about the Library Map of the World which contains case studies from libraries worldwide that meet the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. One library project that she highlighted was in the Lviv Regional Children’s Library in Ukraine that started an educational project for children called ‘Garbage Hero’ to encourage children and teenagers to think about recycling and reusing materials. Unfortunately, there are no case studies from the UK currently on the Library Map of the World and there was a call to submit any projects, I think some of the great things we heard about during the conference would definitely be worthy of a place on the map.
Sustainable Libraries Initiative USA
The last speaker was Rebekkah Smith Aldrich talking about the Sustainable Libraries Initiative in the USA. She talked about sustainability being a core value in the American Library Association, much like it is in CILIP in the UK. The Sustainable Libraries Initiative aims to help libraries become environmentally sound, socially equitable and economically feasible and offers Sustainable Library Certification programme along with resources and webinars to help libraries on their sustainability journey. It was great to hear that there were a wide variety of libraries that have joined the initiative from small single staffed libraries to large multi-site city libraries and that no matter how small or niche a library is, there are ways to make every library more sustainable. Rebekkah made the important point that the people most impacted by climate change are not the ones causing it.
I came away from the conference with lots of ideas and information to feed back to my colleagues. First on my list will be a digital clean up, our shared library folder needs some tidying and it’s great to know that by spending some time deleting out of date files we will be reducing our carbon footprint. I would like to add some signage by our water dispenser that makes it clear that we don’t provide single-use plastic cups as part of our commitment to sustainability. A larger goal is to look at developing a strategy for sustainability in our library service, and contacting our book supplier to find out about their sustainability, as well as contacting our Trust sustainability team to see how we can better get involved in the Greener NHS targets.
The conference made me realise that small actions really do have a big impact, if we all take small steps then together that can amount to big changes. It reminded me of the importance of working together to share knowledge and expertise. Climate change can be really anxiety inducing but the conference was a very positive and inspiring day full of great ideas and hope for the future. Although being in NHS libraries we may not have a direct impact on society like public libraries do, there are so many small changes and actions that we can make to positively impact our library services, our users and the whole NHS. We are perfectly positioned to support the greener NHS ambitions.