Scotland’s Climate Week stories – meet Mike Ralph

Scotland’s Climate Week is an opportunity to celebrate and encourage climate action.

A chance to learn more about what we can all do to help.

The climate and ecological emergency is a health emergency – so by taking action to help Scotland become climate ready, we can also help improve people’s health and wellbeing.

We all have a part to play – whatever our role. And we’re all in it together.

We are over 180,000 strong, so what we do can make a real difference. Every action counts.

From recycling to active travel, from energy use to our supply chain, from prescribing to our greenspaces and more – there are many ways we can make a change.

Meet Mike

This #ScotClimateWeek, we’re shining a spotlight on some of the work happening across Scotland to make our NHS more sustainable – and the people behind this work.

Mike Ralph, Head of Energy, NHSScotland Assure

We caught up with Mike Ralph, Head of Energy at NHSScotland Assure.

Hi Mike, what does taking climate action mean to you?

For me climate action is a holistic process – working together and looking how everything connects is vital.

Although my title may suggest I am only interested in the energy itself, my interest (and my involvement) starts long before that. For me, it’s about looking at this from end-to-end – this includes how we design, procure and install the systems which then use that energy.

Climate action to me is also about looking at new ways of thinking and new solutions.

When I was a director at Great Ormond Street Hospital, their environmental statement was the Hippocratic principle “first do no harm” – the reasoning being that in saving a child we should not sacrifice the planet which they will then grow up in.

It has always made me think and question why we do things the way we do.

There are often complexities to navigate when looking at how to make our healthcare environments more sustainable, but if we decide to move away from “we’ve always done it that way” and look at new ways of thinking, that’s how we can advance.

Can you tell us a bit about your role, and how the work of your team is helping to make NHSScotland more sustainable?

There are many aspects to what the energy team does and how we link into sustainability and carbon management.

The energy team covers a very broad spectrum of work ranging from practical metering and monitoring of energy use to reviews for geothermal surveys and assessments for novel energy from sewage heat recovery schemes and heat and power purchase agreements, we are always looking towards technology to increase our efficiency and give better control options to aid sustainability and carbon management  

Outside my day-to-day work, I’m currently looking at guidance around how we design, provide and operate medical gas pipeline systems and medical vacuum systems.

We all bring our own expertise and experience to the table when it comes to making sustainable changes. For me, I’m interested in what net zero means in real, practical terms – in this case, how we can make behind-the-scenes improvements that will continue to deliver a high standard of care to patients, while saving energy (and so make both carbon and financial savings too).

We all realise the clinical benefits of medical gases and medical vacuum and its critical, often life-saving importance for patients. What I’m exploring is other ways of supplying it than a centralised plant, which is very heavy on capital expenditure, installation, maintenance and the energy that is then needed to run it. Work on this so far shows there’s huge potential to do things more efficiently in this area, in a way which supports patient safety and clinical need, and supports our planet and the public purse too.

How can people get involved?

We all have to work together, as a multi-disciplinary team, to appreciate other people’s perspectives and to really listen to what is said and make an active change. And when it’s time to feed back or make recommendations, it’s about recommending what’s needed, not what people think they want, so we can develop sustainable solutions together.

That’s something I’ll be continuing to do throughout the work I’ve spoken about – but it’s true of all the work going on, across boards and disciplines and projects throughout NHSScotland.

When it comes to energy in particular, there are lots of changes we can make at home too. There’s lots of great tips on the Home Energy Scotland website to help us cut our energy use, save money and enjoy warmer homes.

Small changes add up to a big impact, so whether you’re turning off devices or lights when they don’t need to be on, turning the thermostat back a degree, making sure you don’t overfill the kettle, or draught-proofing your windows and doors, you’ll be making a difference.

Photo by Dylan Zeng