RCOT and sustainability
RCOT and sustainability
This figure is from our environmental sustainability survey. It highlights the desire for both individual and profession-led action within our membership.
The good news is OTs can make a difference and improve outcomes for people and planet by incorporating sustainable practice into their professional roles and evidencing the environmental, social and financial impact. These three impact areas form the basis of our action plan.
It’s important that we act now to protect the future health of our people and planet with a commitment to greatly reduce emissions from the wealthiest and biggest polluting healthcare sectors.
We believe
- We can all play a part in helping combat the impact of the climate emergency and reduce health inequalities.
- The current use of resources is not sustainable without compromising the wellbeing of future generations.
- Our ability, and that of the people we work with, to take part in meaningful occupations, have access to the places that matter to us and be satisfied with our occupational wellbeing are being affected by the climate crisis.
- Sustainability and a fair approach to facilitating occupational wellbeing should go hand in hand.
We are committed to
- embedding sustainability into our business activities
- enabling our members to understand and embed sustainability while delivering high quality, evidenced based care to the people they're working with
- being an ethical and sustainably responsible business.
We recognise the critical importance of sustainability as a key part of prioritising the occupational wellbeing of the people we work with. This is reflected in our Professional Standards (Section 4.1, 2021) and the WFOT professional standards. This means we’re committed to ensuring it’s embedded within the occupational therapy profession.
When developing our actions and guidance we have looked across our profession. You may be interested in reading the statements from these other bodies:
Other bodies
What are we doing?
We have established a sustainability action plan to reflect our commitments. This action plan has three main objectives with associated actions.
Our objectives
We will review and reduce our carbon footprint through careful and respectful use of natural resources
Key actions:
- adopt a ‘digital first’ approach to our resource production
- take measures to enhance the environmental literacy of our staff to encourage green working practices
- make ‘Reduce, Reuse, Reprocess, Renew, Recycle’ our primary approach for organisational operations.
We will work to raise member awareness of sustainability issues in relation to occupational therapy practice so you, our members, can champion sustainability from your individual, service and organisational perspectives
Key actions:
- develop a dedicated web page resource for members
- work creatively and collaboratively with members to promote sustainability
- showcase Green Member initiatives and good practices through our communication channels.
We will review our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to ensure that we have a positive impact on the social and environmental systems
Key actions:
- develop and enact a CSR strategy and plan.
We will review our investment policies to ensure that we only invest in line with our values and purpose as an organisation
Key actions:
- review our investment portfolio
- add sustainability clauses to new contracts for services.
How can you make an impact?
Understanding where and how we can all begin to make changes in our professional and personal lives is overwhelming at times and can feel like yet another pressure on top of all the other work stresses.
We have collaborated with OTs and sustainability experts to put together 10 key actions that working OTs can slide into their practice. We do not recommend approaching all 10 at once as making small adjustments will lead to longer-term success and benefits. It is about starting small, maintaining it and sharing progress with others, so it is embedded into our way of being.
A useful Venn diagram for understanding how best to find your climate action is based on the intersection between what is meaningful, brings you joy and enables you to use your skills.
Each key action fits within one of three headings to support your approach to them. Each action will be expanded upon by a blog over the coming months, but if you have any thoughts or ideas, please do share them with us at hello@rcot.co.uk.