All CO2 emissions mapped for Maastricht UMC+

Delivering proper healthcare in a hospital requires substantial amounts of energy and materials which inevitably leads to waste. To reduce CO2 emissions and comply with the national Green Deal Sustainable Care, we developed a CO2 flow chart for and with MUMC+ based on scopes 1, 2 and 3.

Project facts

Client
Maastricht UMC+
Location
Maastricht, the Netherlands
Date
2024
Challenge
To create a detailed overview of the hospital's material flows and associated CO2 emissions.
Solution
A CO2 flow chart that provides a transparent picture of emissions and targeted information to enable reduction of the carbon footprint through targeted actions.

Sustainability in a hospital

Hundreds of gloves, needles, disinfectants, sheets, and surgical masks come into and go out of a hospital every day. This results in a substantial amount of CO2 emissions. Electricity, natural gas, business travel and commuting also produce a lot of CO2 emissions.

To make healthcare more sustainable, the central government made agreements with healthcare organisations in the Green Deal Sustainable Care 3.0. The objective of this is to ensure that proper care is also provided for people and the planet in the long term and that it does not lead to health issues or additional pollution of our planet. For that would create more and different healthcare issues in the long run.

But as a hospital, how do you reduce your CO2 emissions while continuing to provide the same high-quality healthcare? That takes insight. And that is why a CO2 flow chart had to become the starting point for Maastricht UMC+.

CO2 flow chart as a basis

With a CO2 flow chart, an organisation can see at a glance the inflow of CO2 via procurement and energy, for example, and the outflow in the form of waste. These categories are bundled into scopes 1, 2 and 3. The goods purchased which make the largest contribution to CO2 emissions are also clearly displayed so that the organisation can critically examine and act on them.

Erna Hofs, Sustainability & Environment Programme Manager at Maastricht UMC+: "Using this flow chart, we can very easily see where we can make the most significant impact and therefore what we can set our sights on in terms of targets. It also helps to make everyone aware of the urgency and impact because it's fair to say that the way the data is presented is impressive. It certainly says a lot."

"This assignment was a good fit for us as we had been creating CO2 roadmaps for the healthcare sector for a long time. It is a logical next step," says Martine Verhoeven, Circularity and Sustainability Consultant at Royal HaskoningDHV. "We mapped the bigger picture within this project for Maastricht UMC+. Where is the environmental impact? When you know that, you can manage the project more specifically and make choices. At Maastricht UMC+, we saw that themes started to become intertwined. As a hospital, do you then put your money towards the electrification of mobility, for example, or towards reducing electricity consumption instead? That is what we wanted to make transparent."

With the CO2 flow chart, it becomes clear where your invested euro can make the biggest impact. This provides clear direction for overlapping sustainability initiatives.

Martine VerhoevenCircularity and Sustainability Consultant at Royal HaskoningDHV

Our expertise lies in making data and information transparent, ranking and classifying it into the right scope and providing CO2 information. To gain insight into CO2 emissions, we collected as much data as possible and talked to a number of people within the organisation. Martine Verhoeven recounts: "Some of the data was already available. The data on the CO2 emissions of the buildings was held by the Facilities and Real Estate departments, the CO2 emissions data relating to mobility was obtained from HR while the products for medical processes are looked after by Procurement and Pharmacology. So we retrieved a lot of data from these departments. We clustered the input into product groups and linked them to an impact. The same was done for the waste flows. The CO2 flow chart shows how waste is separated, what percentage is reused and how much waste, particularly hazardous waste, is incinerated."

Big win for the Procurement department

Gerard Jansen, Leading Sustainability Professional at Royal HaskoningDHV: "It’s great to see that this insight into CO2 emissions enables whole processes within the hospital to be optimised. With insight, you can prepare to take action. By taking a critical look at the use of disposable products, for example, you can adjust your procurement policy accordingly by opting for reusables. Because Green Teams take a critical look at preventing waste, it also means that products no longer need to be purchased. That’s a double win: less waste and less procurement. That insight allows MUMC+ to take a more critical look at the composition of the product and set requirements accordingly. As a result, we save not only CO2 emissions but also money."

It is extremely valuable to have a clear picture of scope 3. We are meticulously supported in this by Royal HaskoningDHV.

Erna HofsSustainability & Environment Programme Manager at Maastricht UMC+

Working independently

Depending on how quickly data becomes available, a CO2 flow chart for a hospital can be created in three to four months. With this map, we clarify the situation so that our client can make the right choices. Gerard Jansen: "The existing project groups and processes are thus facilitated by this overview of the large amount of data. I must admit: structuring the inflow and outflow of CO2 properly takes a lot of work. But once that structure is in place, it becomes easier for a client to keep track of it. With the resulting insights, serious steps can be taken in terms of increasing sustainability."

Erna Hofs from Maastricht UMC+ acknowledges this: "The experts from Royal HaskoningDHV sorted and filtered a huge amount of data. That has helped us a lot. In particular, mapping scope 3 – materials – has great added value for us because it allows us to increase the circularity of the materials that pass through the hospital on a daily basis. Based on this data, we are going to investigate whether we can replace disposable thermometers with reusable ear thermometers, for example. These kinds of choices can make an impact that we will see for years to come."

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