At Consultant Connect, we are committed to promoting and delivering initiatives that enhance the economic, social, and environmental well-being of the areas in which we operate. This led to Patrick, Hayley, and Brogan from the Account Management Team forming the Social Values Project nearly three years ago. Together, we plan and initiate ways to contribute to social value, support local and small businesses and volunteer within our community to make it a safer, greener space.
As third-party providers to the NHS, we work to ensure that we are adopting practices that contribute to the NHS’s five social value goals: fighting climate change, promoting well-being and equal opportunities, tackling economic inequality, and supporting COVID-19 recovery.
ISO 14001 and ClimatePartner-certified status
We are both ISO 14001 accredited and have been awarded ClimatePartner-certified status. ISO 14001 is the international standard for implementing an Environmental Management System, and ClimatePartner-certified status recognises that a company has gone through all five steps of a climate action strategy: calculating carbon footprints, setting reduction targets, implementing reductions, financing climate projects, and transparently communicating this. These two accreditations and certifications combined demonstrate we have externally audited systems and processes in place to manage our transition to net zero.
Carbon footprint
We’ve been measuring our carbon footprint since 2021, supported by the external third-party climate measurement company ClimatePartner. We’ve offset our emissions with VER project standard offsets, and are carbon neutral.
Our offset project also comes with an added commitment that an additional 10kg of plastic is removed from our oceans for each tonne of carbon offset. Our 2024 report calculated our emissions as 96,442.15kg CO₂. This is a 7% reduction to the previous year, the equivalent of the entire Consultant Connect team charging their smartphones every day for 53 years.
One of the main impacts of using Consultant Connect services is that it prevents unnecessary trips to hospital for patients – approximately 66% of Telephone and Messaging Advice & Guidance queries result in patients avoiding unnecessary referrals/admissions, reducing miles travelled and associated greenhouse gases, as well as the burden on Secondary Care services. As an organisation, we are focused on delivering remote services that significantly benefit our environmental performance, including supporting clients to achieve net zero.
Our ambitions to reduce carbon continue outside of the UK, and we aim to support and encourage the use of telehealth wherever we can. We partner with a number of healthcare professional-led charitable projects globally to support telehealth initiatives. Our non-profit projects includes partnership with the Burma Skincare Initiative, which allows their UK team to provide colleagues in Myanmar with Teledermatology Advice & Guidance. The Myanmar project supports Primary and Secondary Care services throughout the country, and clinical advice is provided by a team of 15 UK-based NHS dermatologists. In addition to improving patient care, the initiative results in many patients not needing to travel significant distances to access specialist advice, reducing carbon emissions associated with travel beyond the UK. We’ve also recently collaborated with Bridges2Health&Rights, helping doctors in Lebanon to connect with a network of volunteer dermatologists across Europe with expertise in migrant health to receive real-time specialist support.
If you have any questions about our pledge to the environment, please contact us on 01865 261467 or email hello@consultantconnect.org.uk.
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