Overview
As a kidney community of patients, healthcare professionals and industry partners, we recognise the environmental damage associated with the delivery of kidney care and our responsibility to future patients to leave resilient and sustainable services on a liveable planet.
The Sustainable Kidney Care Committee has been set up as a partnership between the UKKA, the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, to radically reduce this damage, with high-level targets now established for both decarbonization and the reduction of other environmental impacts of UK kidney care (see figure 1).
Figure 1. High-level targets
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These targets will be achieved through the work of three separate workstreams and with annualised goals.
Membership
Co-Chairs: Suren Kanagasundaram (Clinical Co-Chair and Workstream 2 Lead) and Gloria Munoz-Figueroa (MPT Co-Chair and Workstream 1 Lead)
- Frances Mortimer: The Medical Director of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, Workstream 1 Lead, Co-Lead - Atlas of Variation Project
- Rosa Montero: Consultant Nephrologist and Workstream 4 Lead
- Keith Moore: Sustainable Healthcare Coalition
- Fiona Adshead: Chair, Sustainable Healthcare Coalition
- Ron Cullen: CEO, UK Kidney Association
- Eleanor Murray: Renal Consultant, Co-Lead - Atlas of Variation Project
- Gareth Murcutt: Renal Technologist
- Keith Channing: Renal Technology
- Mark Harber: Consultant Nephrologist, Workstream 1 Lead
- Mark Wright: Consultant Nephrologist and Renal Networks Liaison
- Manraj Phull: Greener NHS representation
- Shazia Adalat:Paediatric Nephrologist
- Angeline Taylor: Renal Dietitian, Chair of the Kidney Dietitian Specialist Group
- Lucy Brown: Sustainable Healthcare Delivery Lead/AHP Lead
- Oliver Thomas: Renal SpR
- Rona Grieve: Scotland Nursing Representative
- Fiona McFadyen: Scotland Nursing Representative
- Claire McGuire: England Nursing Representative
- Andrea Brown: Chief Executive, National Kidney Federation
- Retha Steenkamp: Head of Operations, UK Renal Registry
- Paul Clarke: Senior Specialist Renal Pharmacist, Chair - UK Renal Pharmacy Group
- Emily Horwill: Renal Pharmacist
Workstreams
Workstream 1 - Action, Learning and Education
Workstream leads: Frances Mortimer and Mark Harber
Members:
- Stephen Palmer
- Eleanor Murray
- Emily Horwill
- Rosa Montero
- Gloria Munoz-Figueroa
- Nina Brown
- John Stoves
- Rona Hutton
- Jessica Notzing
- Ali Lawrence: Patient Ambassador
The aim of the Action Learning and Education work stream is to inspire and empower members of the kidney care community to take action for sustainability. Building on previous successes we apply a two-pronged approach:
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creating a community of practice and support via the Sustainable Kidney Care Network
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equipping staff through education and training to improve sustainability of their services through signposting/developing training for different staff groups and integrating into existing curricula and training
June 2025 goal - 60 ‘active’ champions across all UK kidney sites (main or satellite units).
‘Active’ is defined as:
- Submitting data to benchmarking audit
- Completed CSH free online self-study course
- Participating in network: e.g. attend at least 1 network event +/- posting
- Network goals: 750 membership, 10 number of events, 20 attending each event
- Education stats: 50 UK kidney staff completing online course
The multi-professional workstream includes members from a wide range of kidney care professions spanning teams from South East England through to Scotland and Wales. Anyone interested in joining please contact Dr Frances Mortimer, Medical Director, Centre for Sustainable Healthcare
Workstream 2 - Procurement, Infrastructure and Innovation
This workstream is the key interface with the wider supply chain, where the bulk of kidney care carbon emissions, reside, and has now been subsumed into the global GREEN-K initiative’s procurement workstream (co-led by Suren Kanagasundaram). Find out more about GREEN-K here.
June 2025 goal - Finalise and disseminate a global, generic joint statement of demand of industry for kidney care products and services, covering decarbonisation, circularity and other defined domains.
Workstream 3 - Sustainable Kidney Care Pathways
This workstream is embedding environmental sustainability within kidney care pathways, including relevant clinical standards and guidelines
Workstream 4 - Climate Resilience
Workstream lead: Rosa Montero
This workstream aims to embed climate resilience into UK kidney care services and facilities and in the supply chains we rely on. It will become increasingly important as the climate crisis worsens. The UKKA Sustainable Kidney Care Committee is a member of the LIFE-RESYSTAL scaling network that seeks to build climate resilience across European health systems and share best practices.
Outputs
Kidney Centre Sustainability Champions Scheme
Would you like to be your kidney centre's sustainability champion?
Help us to work collaboratively to meet our targets, improve dissemination of best practices and be a sustainability point of contact for your kidney centre. Open to all staff from any discipline.
You can find further information and sign up here: Kidney Unit Sustainability Champion Scheme | Sustainable Healthcare Networks Hub
If you're interested in networking with others involved in sustainable kidney care, please visit the Kidney Care Sustainability Network: About Kidney Care Sustainability Network | Sustainable Healthcare Networks Hub
Atlas of Variation
June 2025 Goals:
• Agree the criteria we are auditing against (aligned across 4 nations)
• Develop simple infrastructure for collecting and storing data
• Develop the infrastructure and continue work to disseminate and share data in a meaningful way – potential use of a geographical map of variation
• Begin populating the atlas with pilot: 50 sites complete survey by end Q2 2025
ISN GREEN-K - Global Environmental Evolution in Nephrology and Kidney Care
GREEN-K Global Environmental Evolution in Nephrology and Kidney Care calls on the development of climate-resilient kidney care systems that function through accountable, sustainable low carbon health care, and proposes a pathway to achieve this goal through a global, collaborative, and inclusive multidisciplinary working group. The ‘GREEN-K’ initiative has a vision of ‘Sustainable kidney care for a healthy planet and healthy kidneys’, and a mission to ‘Promote and support environmentally sustainable and resilient kidney care globally through advocacy, education, and collaboration’.
This initiative will be inclusive and global, focusing on collaborative action to develop a coordinated plan to achieve low carbon kidney services across our spectrum of care. Suren Kanagasundaram (Clinical co-chair) and Mark Harber (Workstream lead) sit on the steering committee for this important piece of work. More information can be found here.
Resources
12 Steps to Green a Kidney Unit - full version - June 2023 | Sustainable Healthcare Networks Hub
12 things we can do as individuals to become greener | Sustainable Healthcare Networks Hub
Sustainable Healthcare Coalition – Newcastle Hospitals in-centre haemodialysis carbon calculator
Real Zero Holborn Declaration for sustainable conferencing
Sustainable Kidney Care webinars
An insightful and timely webinar, hosted by Shazia Adalat and Suren Kanagasundaram, looking into the latest plans and developments across the kidney care community to help drive and promote sustainability. Topics included incorporating sustainability into the Renal Service Transformation Plan and a multi-professional panel discussion of developments in sustainable kidney care.
A webinar with presentations on IPCC and COP26: what happens now? Transitioning to a sustainable NHS and a brief history of Green Nephrology, carbon literacy and the triple bottom line. Presenters include James Dixon, Manraj Phull, Andy Connor and Frances Mortimer.
Sustainable and plant-based diets
A new presentation on Sustainable Diets in CDS, produced by the Chair of the BDA Renal Nutrition Group, Angeline Taylor, is now available here. Other resources are available on plant-based diets:
Eating a plant-based diet with a kidney transplant
Eating a plant-based diet with CKD
Eating a plant-based diet when having dialysis
General sustainability resources
Developing a human-centred national Heat Resilience Strategy
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change - Policy Brief for the UK
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change - Data Sheet 2023
The Climate and Us - The Global Climate and Health Alliance
No-fly Nephrology pledge
We are examining all areas of environmental impact within our practice and this includes our need to fly for conferences and other work events. Air travel to a single international conference can generate more carbon emissions in that one trip than the average person emits over the course of a whole year in dozens of countries. We are committed to exploring new models of learning and sharing that allow our specialty to develop whilst reducing the harm to our planet. With this is in mind, a number of kidney care specialists are making personal, No Fly pledges for academic and work reasons. You can find out who's already made this pledge through this link. #NoFlyNephrology #FlightFreeWork#FlightFreeScience#FlightFreeLearning