Foreword by HRA Chief Executive Matt Westmore
The Health Research Authority has shown leadership in many aspects of ensuring that health and social care research is fit for our future. Through the individual action of our people, we have also made some significant inroads into reducing our environmental impact. Now we must respond to the global climate emergency through both leadership and action.
With this strategy we declare a climate emergency and our ambition, including setting out our initial plans in line with government targets, to become a carbon net zero organisation by 2050.
This is of fundamental importance to HRA delivering its social mission. We cannot help researchers do research people can trust, we cannot faithfully say we are protecting and promoting the interests of participants (as set out in the Care Act 2014) if we don’t meet our statutory, public body, social and moral responsibilities to address climate change.
The HRA’s overall strategy for the next three years is to make progress on research being done with and for everyone, and that the UK is the most efficient place in the world to do research. These goals are just not possible without a strong foundation in sustainability.
This environmental sustainability strategy sets out the immediate environmentally sustainable changes we will make internally and will explore how we can encourage changes externally. It will future proof the organisation and ensure we are ready for any other environmental sustainability issues we need to consider and prepare for to continue to protect the health of the nation.
First and foremost, this is about what we do within the HRA. But what the HRA does has a wider impact. As the authority, we can drive change internally and encourage it externally.
This work is important because as a public body, as a community focussed on improving peoples’ lives, and as individuals who are driven by acting ethically, we must reduce the negative impact we have on our environment through climate, our planet, and our health.
Strategy
The Health Research Authority (HRA) is committed to environmental sustainability and achieving the UK government's target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
We aim to be an environmentally sustainable organisation. This means we take steps to enhance efficiencies, reduce resource consumption and waste, and measure and monitor carbon emissions across the entire supply chain.
We aim to embed environmental sustainability as part of our normal working practice and culture and, where appropriate, enable and support environmentally sustainable health and social care research.
Research that the HRA issues guidance on, health care projects it reviews and provides approval on is carried out mainly in the NHS. The NHS, as the largest employer in the UK, is responsible for four per cent of Britain’s carbon emissions [Delivering a Net Zero NHS report]. The need to reduce carbon emission and acknowledgement of climate change on health is reflected in the NHS Long Term plan. Alongside this, in 2020 the Greener NHS Campaign was launched to mobilise staff and set the NHS’s commitment to become carbon net zero. Research is an integral part of clinical care, and as part of our strategic conversations with our stakeholders and partners, we will consider what environmentally sustainable research looks like and how we can work together to support research to be delivered in a sustainable way. This in turn will help to facilitate sustainable practices in standard clinical care, supporting the NHS in reaching its commitment to become carbon net zero.
HRA Strategic Priorities
The HRA strategic priorities are: To embed environmentally sustainable practices into our daily business, making environmental sustainability the norm, and encouraging and facilitating sustainability in research.
We need to do better rather than do more at this stage, ensuring our policy and guidance are actively aligned with meaningful action to promote and support sustainability in research. Our goals are:
- Embed environmental sustainability as 'business as usual' within the HRA.
- Integrate our environmental sustainability strategy into our activities by:
- Engaging with stakeholders to understand current efforts in environmentally sustainable research and identifying how the HRA can contribute.
- Tracking CO₂ emissions from transport against the 2022 baseline and evolving travel policies to guide sustainable travel choices.
- Empowering all HRA colleagues to incorporate environmental sustainability into their everyday business decisions.
- Align with Government Digital Services guidance on sustainability by applying the HRA Digital Sustainability Principles.
- Enhance existing guidance to spotlight and encourage sustainable research practices, such as research transparency, remote monitoring, decentralised trials, and e-consent.
- Collaborate with other organisations to exchange best practices and foster systemic change.
The HRA has a part to play in realising net zero targets but our role beyond reducing our own emissions is limited and we acknowledge that partners in the life sciences sector are already addressing this issue individually and collectively.