The Greener NHS report reviews five years of progress, confirms that NHS Carbon Footprint emissions are falling, and leaves carbon accounting looking dangerously close to having a career plan.
NHS England published the report on 24 September 2025. It reviews the five years since the NHS made its net zero commitment in 2020. The report says NHS Carbon Footprint emissions have fallen 14 percent since the strategy began and more than 68 percent since 1990.
That progress is impressive by any standard. However, it may still face the standard used by a committee that has just discovered another standard.
Greener NHS report sends ambition to review
The report says the NHS remains on track for an 80 percent reduction in direct emissions by 2032. It also sets net zero targets of 2040 for emissions the NHS controls and 2045 for emissions it can influence.
This gives the word influence a magnificent administrative career. It can now mean measurable progress, a distant hope or asking reality to attend a workshop.
At the Office of Carbon Arithmetic, sustainability director Dora Refill welcomed the figures. “The direction of travel is clear,” she said. “We have placed it on a dashboard, given it a milestone and asked it not to make any sudden changes.”
The Greener NHS report presents its next phase as a chance to maintain momentum and turn progress into longer term action. Colin Compost, deputy director of strategic ambition, said the service would keep separating emissions it controls from emissions it influences.
“The emissions we merely know about are attending a listening exercise,” he said. “They have declined to say whether they will attend the follow up meeting.”
That distinction gives carbon an efficient management structure. Controlled emissions receive a target. Influenced emissions receive a roadmap. Uncooperative emissions receive monitoring by a panel whose first meeting will decide whether anyone has identified them correctly.
Meanwhile, the figures show that environmental improvement can be measured, reviewed and assigned a date that sounds urgent and reassuring at the same time. The remaining challenge is to turn strategic ambition into action without commissioning a new strategy to explain what happened to the last one.
By 2045, the NHS hopes to have influenced the emissions it cannot control. The emissions will then complete a satisfaction survey, while carbon accounting applies for its own directorate and demands a larger office.
Source: NHS England.
