Climate change is already harming health in Greater Manchester from worsening asthma to heat-related illness and it’s hitting the most vulnerable communities the hardest. That’s why NHS Greater Manchester has launched its Green Plan 2025–28 setting out how it will cut carbon and create a greener, climate-ready NHS that protects people and the planet.
More about the Green Plan
The plan supports cleaner air and healthier lungs, helps hospitals and communities better prepare for heatwaves and encourages everyday choices that reduce pollution. The work also supports Greater Manchester’s Five-Year Environment Plan 2025–2030, which sets out the journey to a net zero city region by 2038. The plan is championed by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester. Net zero means reducing pollution as far as we can and offsetting what’s left, so we’re no longer adding to climate change. For Greater Manchester, it’s about cleaner air and better health for everyone.
Goals of the Green Plan
At the heart of the ambitious plan there are three goals:
- Net zero by 2038 for NHS emissions such as introducing energy saving measures by using LED lighting and insulation. Using renewable energy like air and ground source heat pumps and solar panels to heat buildings rather than fossil fuels.
- Net zero by 2045 for emissions the NHS can influence including:
- Taking net zero and social value into account when awarding contracts.
- Piloting reusable or remanufactured products as alternatives to single-use items.
- Supporting our suppliers to assess and reduce their carbon footprints.
- A climate-ready NHS that supports nature, cuts pollution, and promotes health.
In Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester was the first integrated care system to declare a “climate emergency”. It published its first Green Plan in 2022 and in July 2025 published a second Green Plan with an updated set of priorities over 2025 to 2028.
Since then, the NHS in Greater Manchester has reduced its carbon footprint by almost 10% (25,000 tonnes of carbon), that’s the same as taking 18,000 cars off the road for a year.
Local green action
Bolton NHS Foundation Trust: the Community IV (intravenous) Therapy Team switched to 24-hour devices, which require one visit per day instead of the traditional three or four visits, cutting thousands of car journeys and saving 26,000 single-use plastics – winning Green Initiative of the Year at the Greater Manchester Health and Care Champion Awards.
Kirkholt Medical Centre, Rochdale: actively promoting greener inhaler use has cut the equivalent of 1,500 kg of emissions every month, helping both lungs and the planet.
Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust: successfully secured £5.1m for solar panels and battery storage solutions, estimated lifetime savings of £12.75m.
Walking aids: all acute NHS trusts that give walking aids have schemes to collect and reuse them. Each year, over 5,000 aids are reused, saving more than £62,000.
What’s next?
The new Green Plan builds on progress since 2019 by:
- Expanding digital and virtual healthcare where appropriate to reduce unnecessary travel.
- Boosting walking, cycling, wheeling, and public transport for staff, patients and visitors by making it easier to use public transport and helping more people claim travel cost reimbursements.
- Cutting emissions from NHS estates through energy efficiency upgrades.
- Reducing medicines waste and promoting low-carbon alternatives in care.
- Creating greener spaces and supporting natural environments across NHS sites for healthier, happier communities.
Dr Francis Collett-White, Sustainability Clinical Lead (Primary Care), NHS Greater Manchester, said: “Greater Manchester is improving respiratory care by making sure patients use their inhalers in the most effective way, by using low carbon inhalers and supporting self-management. We’re also working with TfGM to promote sustainable travel to reduce air pollution and with the GMCA to improve vulnerable people’s poorly insulated homes. We can all live in a healthier, cleaner, greener and fairer city but it takes strong consistent action from everyone.
Warren Heppolette Chief Officer for Strategy, Innovation and Population Health, NHS Greater Manchester, said: “The climate emergency is a health emergency. Its effects are already being felt across Greater Manchester, especially in disadvantaged communities. Our new Green Plan builds on the strong progress we have already made. We are embedding greener, fairer, healthier principles into everything we do.”
