Last week Spire Tunbridge Wells launched its energy awareness week with the help of some keen energy champions: Adrian Connolly, Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital Director; Nigel Sharp, National Engineer and Philip Belton, Engineering Manager.
There were a number of organisations displaying carbon reduction technologies during the week with a chance to find out exactly what grants staff and patients can apply for to help towards purchase energy saving devices like loft and wall insulation, replacement efficient boilers and renewable technology.
During the week we held a number of departmental team challenges including finding the most carbon friendly department in the hospital and holding a low carbon menu which was design from locally sourced produce, which reduced food miles and lowered our carbon foot print.
We held a number of behind the scenes energy tours of the hospital plant rooms to explain how and why carbon reduction is so important and what can be done to make that change. VIP visitors taken on this tour included members from Engineering management of Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone NHS Trust and Cllr David Elliott, Head of Sustainability and climate change at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.
Penshurst Village Primary School carbon reduction poster competition
Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital ran a competition with Penshurst Village Primary school to design carbon reduction awareness posters for use in the energy campaigning. The children were asked to draw pictures of what energy issues were important to them. We had a great result from the pupils at the school with many creating colourful and interesting posters which are currently on display in the main reception area of the hospital.
Phil Belton Engineering Manager at Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital tells us how we can 'Beat the Autumn Blues':
Now the summer holidays are over and the long dark nights are drawing in, we’ve come up with some great ways to brighten up your autumn with tips to help you stop wasting energy and money at work:
- Turn off your monitor, PC and printers
- If you work on a computer, turn your monitor off when you go to a meeting or for lunch. Always turn off your PC and monitor at the end of the working day, and don't be tempted to leave either of them in standby or sleep mode.
- Control the temperature
- Ensure that in your working area you do not have both the heating on with doors or windows open or even worse with the air conditioning on!
- Use less paper
- Ask the question…..do we really need to print all the paper we do? Can you cut down on the paper you use at work? Try changing the print options so that you can print two pages of a document on one side of paper, and make sure you're printing on both sides of the paper. And in meetings you can always ask people to share printed documents.
- Reading and storing documents on your PC (rather than printing them) will also save paper, energy and resources