Case Study
Confidential European National Health System
Jacobs’ client is required to align with its government’s carbon quantification and reduction targets to:
- Reduce total emissions 75% by 2030 against a 1990 baseline
- Ensure all publicly owned building heating is decarbonized by 2038
- Achieve net-zero emissions for GHG emissions by or before 2040
As part of the national health system, the client must meet these expectations on a tight budget, and while maintaining resilient health care operations that can withstand unforeseen stresses like the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, Jacobs helped develop a seven-step methodology with the goal of creating a tailored route map for delivering on these compliance targets. We started with a data collection exercise that accurately calculated GHG emissions, so health care organizations had a baseline to measure their progress against. This involved discussions and meetings with many departments across the health care industry, from building operations to fleet management to maintenance and procurement. Because of the focus on energy decarbonization in the government requirements, we conducted site visits to assess actual energy consumption and the efficiency of hospital buildings and associated equipment. Following these site visits, we assessed potential decarbonization measures. Each of the measures were then ranked based on their ability to reduce the most emissions for the least cost, and then organized into a strategy roadmap.
Our roadmap provided a strategic hierarchy of actions that would have the most effect for the lowest cost, starting with improving the energy efficiency of existing assets by deploying strategies such as more efficient lighting or building fabric improvements. Once we reduced the electricity demand as much as possible, we moved to the next step in the roadmap hierarchy, which included displacement of fossil fuels with other alternatives, in this case electricity (also known as electrification). Finally, we considered the feasibility of onsite renewable energy installations such as photovoltaic technology to further reduce electricity emissions. After all other reasonable strategies had been deployed, we developed some offsetting strategies to address the remaining unavoidable emissions.
Key Takeaways
Government guidance specified that the GHG assessment and decarbonization study should focus on Scopes 1 and 2 and limited Scope 3 emissions sources—specifically those Scope 3 sources over which the hospitals had more control like waste management, water, wastewater, energy transmission and distribution, business travel, and leased assets. We also considered limited purchased goods and services, inclusive of medical gases like oxygen, fluorinated gases, and anesthetic gases. Due to the limited boundary of Scope 3 sources included in this study, the inventory was dominated by Scope 1 heating and Scope 2 electricity consumption. Involving stakeholders and suppliers early in the process was critical to enlisting their help with data collection and gaining their support for proposed decarbonization strategies.
The study revealed that to meet the government’s goals, the transition to electric heating must happen within this decade. The healthcare organizations must start planning for big ticket decarbonization upgrades like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning replacement and combined heat and power removal as soon as possible. This is a necessary, effective means of decarbonizing Scope 1 and 2 emissions, but does require a large investment. There is great potential for the installation of photovoltaic panels across health system locations if funding is made available, because this would lead to reductions in Scope 2 and Scope 3 upstream fuel- and energy-related emissions. Fleet electrification would provide the most effective strategy for decarbonizing transport emissions, contributing to reductions in Scope 1 and additional reductions in Scope 3 upstream fuel -and energy-related emissions. Improvements in waste stream segregation processes would also result in significant reductions in nitrous oxide and anesthetic gas emissions, while simultaneously reducing waste management Scope 3 emissions.