HUS year 2023: Environmental responsibility
As a large organization, we recognize the fact that our environmental actions have a major impact. Our environmental efforts were governed by the goals enshrined in the HUS environmental program (2021–2024) and the HUS energy efficiency action plan (2017–2025).
The environmental program focuses on: carbon neutral HUS by 2030; prudent resource management and the circular economy at HUS; and acknowledging and learning about environmental responsibility at HUS Our climate work was governed by our Climate Roadmap 2022–2030 in its first full year.
HUS Climate Roadmap actions promoted
Our climate work was governed by the HUS Climate Roadmap 2022–2030: five of its 104 actions were completed, and 39 progressed to implementation by the end of 2023.
The completions in 2023 included the HUS Low Carbon Construction Guideline. We also reduced emissions from goods transport and increased the percentage of vegetarian foods. Environmental criteria were applied in pharmaceutical procurement for the first time. We also increased the use of low-emission anesthetics as opposed to high-emission anesthetics.
Energy efficiency efforts continued
Our total energy consumption increased by 7.4% in 2023 to 350,000 MWh. Heating energy consumption increased by about 10% and cooling consumption by 75%. Electricity consumption remained at the 2022 level. Energy consumption was particularly increased by the fact that 2023 was the first full year of operations for the Meilahti Bridge Hospital.
We continued to make significant progress in the energy savings measures specified in the Energy Efficiency Agreement (2017–2025), even though we had actually already exceeded the agreement goals in 2022. Energy savings were facilitated by our four new solar power plants and particularly our waste energy recycling projects.
Mixed waste down by c. 100 tons
Our total waste amount remained almost the same compared to the previous year The total waste amount was about 7,680 thousand kilograms.
The total volume of mixed waste decreased by 98 tons, or c. 3%, even though the volume of our operations increased by more than 5% on 2022.
The volume of plastic collected increased by more than 20%, to nearly 90,000 kg.
As in the previous year, the volume of pharmaceutical and cytostatic waste continued to decrease, by nearly 6% to about 101 tons.
We also recycled a significant quantity of furniture and equipment from Töölö Hospital, which we gave up in 2023.
Reduced pharmaceutical and food waste
Our efforts to reduce the waste produced in the various functions at HUS paid off. At HUS Pharmacy, for instance, pharmaceutical waste was cut down by more than 20% on 2022 thanks to monthly meetings, investments in continuous inventory management and more efficient recycling of products. Other units also made strides to reduce pharmaceutical waste.
Support Services continued to cut down on food waste by introducing monitoring of food waste from patient meals and devising measures to reduce it.
Also, the new consumables report helps us find potential users for supplies in storage that are about to expire. Children and Adolescents reduced their number of supply orders by more accurately estimating what is needed for surgical operations and by increasing the use of multi-purpose supplies.
Read more:
Pharmaceutical waste can be reduced by planning and recycling (in Finnish)
Inventor of the food waste form (in Finnish)
Environmental responsibility as part of systematic development of responsible procurement
The sustainable procurement development project (2022–2023) is about integrating the Climate Roadmap into the overall sustainable procurement process to expand and enhance actions by degrees.
In 2023, we entered into a Nordic sustainable procurement cooperation agreement with other major Nordic healthcare operators. We also signed an environmental emblem pledge, under which we aim to gradually increase the number of environmentally certified product groups.
Read more:
HUS is moving towards more sustainable procurement (in Finnish)
Trained environment managers play an important part
In 2023, some 100 new environmental coordinators were trained in the revised environment manager training program to promote environmental matters in their respective units.
More than 200 people attended our in-house environmental seminar on the topic of planetary health.