Langford Vets is pleased to announce the launch of our Green Group!
A team of like-minded colleagues will be working together to help to improve our environmental sustainability as a business.
We are looking at everything from how to reduce our carbon emissions, reducing our waste and increasing our recycling. We have also started a project with Ecologi to offset some of our carbon emissions.
The electricity to the Langford Campus is already from green energy suppliers and we are fortunate to have lots of recycling points around site but there is always more we can do. We have recently introduced new PPE bins to some of our clinical areas to allow us to recycle masks and gloves.
We are keen to get suggestions and help from as many of our colleagues as possible, we have already had suggestions rolling in including ways to reduce our electricity usage, looking at ways to recycle our pet food pouches and bags and many more. As we make more progress we will keep you updated!
As a starting point, our anaesthesia team have already looked at some of their processes to reduce their footprint. A big thank you to the anaesthesia team for their work on this.
What are we working on?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
We are choosing reusable over single use items such as warm air blankets to reduce clinical waste. We encourage our team and students to recycle as much as possible, making sure clear signage and the correct bins are available to reduce our carbon footprint.
Our Instagram audience asked "Does reusing things like this have any impact on infection control?"
This is a great question Great question - this is such an important balance for us. As the Bair hugger stays in the non-sterile area, is not switched on until the patient is covered with surgical drapes, and the blankets are hot washed. We considered there not to be risks to this change. We always audit our infection rates and carefully investigate any concerns - we are happy to say there has been no change, and remain below average in our hospital.
Warm air blanket
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
We are choosing reusable over single use items such as warm air blankets to reduce clinical waste. We encourage our team and students to recycle as much as possible, making sure clear signage and the correct bins are available to reduce our carbon footprint.
Our Instagram audience asked "Does reusing things like this have any impact on infection control?"
This is a great question Great question - this is such an important balance for us. As the Bair hugger stays in the non-sterile area, is not switched on until the patient is covered with surgical drapes, and the blankets are hot washed. We considered there not to be risks to this change. We always audit our infection rates and carefully investigate any concerns - we are happy to say there has been no change, and remain below average in our hospital.
Warm air blanket
Anaesthesia
Sustainability Aneaestheisa
This includes:
- using low flow systems where possible to reduce the use of anaesthetic gases
- use injectable anaesthetics alongside inhalational gases to reduce the amount of gases required
- carefully selecting the gases we use
- we stopped using nitrous oxide in our clinics many years ago
- we use sevoflurane when appropriate which has a much lower impact as a greenhouse gas than isoflurane.
Switch Off Before you Leave
Switch Off Before you Leave
We encourage our team to make sustainable decisions using signage as a gentle reminder. By turning off electrical devices when not in use we are reducing overheads and our CO2 emissions.
We use signs to remind our teams to:
- Clean and tidy monitoring cables
- Switch off monitoring
- Turn off: vaporizer and anaesthetic machine
Ecologi
Whilst reduction is key, we have also committed to offsetting the remaining carbon we produce from our anaesthetic gases. We have teamed up with Ecologi to join their carbon offsetting scheme.
We have offset the 32 tonnes of carbon we created and also planted one tree for every anaesthetic we have performed in that time- leading to another 3250 trees being planted.
Ecologi
Whilst reduction is key, we have also committed to offsetting the remaining carbon we produce from our anaesthetic gases. We have teamed up with Ecologi to join their carbon offsetting scheme.
We have offset the 32 tonnes of carbon we created and also planted one tree for every anaesthetic we have performed in that time- leading to another 3250 trees being planted.