Environmental and Carbon Neutral Policy
Environmental and Carbon Reduction Policy
Policy No: P14 V1.0
- Policy statement
Rx-info Limited is committed to reducing the environmental impact of everything we do, to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. We are a medicines data company based in Exeter, and most of our work involves designing, building, hosting and supporting digital services for NHS organisations.
The NHS has recognised climate change as a health emergency and has committed to becoming the world’s first net zero national health service, reaching net zero by 2040 for the emissions it controls directly and by 2045 for the emissions it can influence, which include those of its suppliers. We are a supplier that actively helps that ambition, and we believe that a business built around digital and remote working is well placed to show what a low carbon way of operating looks like in practice.
This policy sets out the commitments we have made, how we will measure and report our progress, and what we expect of our directors, our people and our suppliers in their day-to-day work. It has been approved by our directors, will be reviewed at least once a year, and will be published on our website alongside our Carbon Reduction Plan.
- Scope
This policy applies to all our directors, employees, contractors and associates, wherever they are working, and to all our activities, including software development, hosting and support, client engagement, travel and the running of our office in Exeter. It applies equally to work carried out from home, at client premises and while travelling on company business.
It also sets out the standards we expect of our suppliers and subcontractors, and we will use our purchasing decisions and our contracts to encourage them to reduce their own emissions wherever we are able to do so.
- Our commitments
Our overriding commitment is to reduce our emissions first and to be open and accurate about the progress we are making. We commit to the following.
- Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, ahead of the NHS’s own target for the emissions it can influence.
- Endeavouring to achieve carbon neutrality for our operational emissions by the end of financial year 2028/29, by reducing those emissions as far as we reasonably can and offsetting the remainder.
- Sourcing a supply chain that matches or betters our energy saving policy.
- Sending minimum office waste to landfill, recycling everything we practically can, and ensuring that all our end of life IT equipment is securely reused or recycled.
- Publishing, and updating at least annually, a Carbon Reduction Plan that meets the requirements NHS organisations set for their suppliers.
- Complying with all environmental laws and regulations that apply to us, and with the environmental requirements of our NHS contracts.
- Continually improving our environmental performance and reviewing this policy and our targets every year.
- Measuring and reporting our emissions
We will measure our greenhouse gas emissions each year in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, using the UK Government’s published conversion factors, and will report them in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Our baseline year will be the financial year 2026/27, and each later year will be compared against it so that our progress can be seen clearly.
For a business like ours, we will report against three areas:
SCOPE 1: covers fuel we burn directly, which for us is limited to heating at the office and any company owned vehicles, and
SCOPE 2 covers the electricity we buy for our office.
SCOPE 3 covers everything else in our value chain and is usually the largest part for a technology company, taking in cloud hosting and software services, the laptops and other equipment we buy, business travel, staff commuting and home working, and the waste we produce.
Each year our directors will approve a Carbon Reduction Plan setting out our baseline and current emissions, our targets and the measures we are taking, and we will publish it on our website. We will prepare it to the standard NHS England requires of its suppliers, including the expanded requirements that apply to NHS procurements from 1 April 2027, so that it covers all relevant Scope 3 emissions and can be relied on.
- Hybrid working and travel
We operate a hybrid working model in which our people work from home for most of the week and come together at our Exeter office when being in the same room genuinely adds value, such as for planning, workshops, induction and team days. Working this way removes much of the commuting that a traditional office would generate, and it is one of the most significant contributions we can make to reducing our footprint.
When travel is needed, we expect everyone to follow the travel hierarchy below, moving down it only where the option above is not practical.
- Avoid the journey by meeting on Teams or another online platform.
- Walk, cycle or use public transport for local journeys.
- Travel by train for longer journeys, including to London, Birmingham and to NHS sites elsewhere in the country.
- Share a car, or use an electric or low emission vehicle, where a car is genuinely needed.
- Use a conventional private car only where none of the above is reasonably available.
We will also give home workers practical guidance on keeping the energy they use for work as low as possible, recognising that some of the emissions avoided by not commuting move into people’s homes, and we will include an estimate of home working emissions in our reporting.
- Digital working, meetings and energy use
Microsoft Teams, or a similar platform, is our default for internal meetings and for client meetings that do not need to take place in person. Meeting face to face remains important for building relationships with NHS colleagues and for some workshops and implementation work, and the test in each case is simply whether the value of meeting in person justifies the travel involved.
We work digitally by default. Documents are created, shared and stored in our Microsoft 365 environment rather than printed, contracts and approvals are signed electronically wherever the other party agrees, and printing is kept to a minimum, double sided and on recycled paper when it cannot be avoided.
- Technology, hosting and sustainable software
As a technology business, the way we design, build and host our products is where we can make some of our most meaningful reductions, both in our own footprint and in the footprint our NHS clients take on when they use our services. We will select hosting and cloud providers that publish credible renewable energy and carbon commitments, using UK data centre regions where this is consistent with our clients’ data protection, security and data residency requirements, and we will use the carbon reporting tools those providers offer to measure the emissions of the services we run.
Our development and operations teams will follow sustainable software practices, including sizing infrastructure to actual demand, switching off test and development environments when they are not in use, removing unused resources, and writing efficient code that does not demand more computing power than it needs. We will keep data only for as long as it is needed, which supports our data protection obligations as well as reducing storage, and we will use energy intensive tools, including artificial intelligence services, where they add genuine value rather than by default.
Laptops, phones and other devices will be bought with energy efficiency and repairability in mind, kept in use for at least four years while they remain secure and fit for purpose, repaired before they are replaced, and bought refurbished where that is appropriate. At the end of their life, devices will be securely wiped and then reused, donated or recycled through an accredited IT asset disposal provider that issues certificates of data destruction, consistent with the data security standards we must meet for our NHS work.
- Waste, recycling and electronic waste
We follow the waste hierarchy of reducing first, then reusing, then recycling, with disposal as the last resort. At our office we will keep dry recyclables (paper and card, plastics, metals and glass) and food waste separate from general waste, as workplaces in England are now required to do, and we will use only licensed waste carriers.
We will avoid single use items in the office, provide reusable cups, bottles and kitchenware, and favour suppliers that take back their packaging. Printer cartridges, batteries and small electrical items will be collected separately and recycled through appropriate schemes.
Electronic equipment must never be put in household or general waste. Home workers should return any company equipment that is broken or no longer needed to the office, or arrange its collection through the Environmental Lead, so that it can be dealt with securely and recycled in accordance with the rules for waste electrical and electronic equipment.
- Sustainable procurement and our supply chain
Most of our emissions are likely to sit with our suppliers, so the choices we make when buying goods and services matter a great deal. We will consider environmental impact alongside price, quality and security when choosing suppliers, look at the whole life cost and impact of what we buy, and avoid buying things we do not need.
- Supporting the NHS’s net zero ambition
We will keep our Carbon Reduction Plan current so that it meets the requirements of each procurement we take part in, and we will answer net zero and social value questions in tenders accurately and with evidence.
We will provide our NHS clients, on request, with reasonable information about the emissions associated with the services we provide to them, and as our data improves, we aim to be able to do so as a matter of routine. When designing services with our clients, we will also look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary travel, paper and duplication within NHS pathways, while taking care not to claim environmental benefits that we cannot evidence.
Rx-info will assist the NHS in monitoring of it’s medicines carbon footprint by developing reporting tools specific to this purpose and providing data and reports to NHS hospitals, regions and nationally.
We will make this information available through our website and via the Risk Ledger portal https://www.riskledger.com/ which we use to manage information requests from NHS and other organisations.
- Environmental claims and carbon offsetting
We will only describe ourselves as carbon neutral, net zero or similar when the statement is accurate, can be substantiated, and makes clear what it covers. Any such statement will identify the emissions and the period it relates to and the extent to which it relies on offsetting and will never be made in unqualified terms.
Carbon credits we buy will come from projects verified under recognised standards, such as the Gold Standard, Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard, the UK Woodland Carbon Code or the UK Peatland Code, and will be retired on a public registry in our name. We will prefer credits that remove carbon from the atmosphere, and projects in the UK where that is practical, and we will disclose in our Carbon Reduction Plan how far our position relies on offsetting.
- Roles and responsibilities
Our directors are collectively accountable for this policy. They approve it and our annual Carbon Reduction Plan, set our targets, and make sure that enough time and budget is available to deliver them.
Colin Richman, MD, is our Environmental Lead and is responsible for coordinating the delivery of this policy day to day, including gathering emissions data, preparing the Carbon Reduction Plan, approving environmental claims and reporting progress to the directors.
Team leaders and managers are responsible for applying this policy within their teams, including approving travel in line with the travel hierarchy and building sustainable practices into the way projects and services are delivered.
Everyone working for us is responsible for following this policy, thinking about the environmental impact of their own decisions, and suggesting improvements.
- Training, engagement and communication
Everyone will be introduced to this policy as part of their induction and will receive a short refresher at least once a year, with more detailed guidance for those who manage our infrastructure, purchasing or travel. We will share our progress against our targets with the whole team at least annually, and anyone may raise ideas or concerns with the Environmental Lead at any time.
We will publish this policy and our Carbon Reduction Plan on our website, share them with clients and suppliers on request, and include them in tender submissions where they are asked for.
- Monitoring, review and approval
The Environmental Lead will report to the directors at least yearly on a small set of measures, namely total emissions and emissions per employee, business travel by mode and distance, office energy use, the proportion of waste recycled, and the number of devices reused, donated or recycled.
This policy will be reviewed at least once a year, and sooner if our business, our clients’ requirements or the law change significantly.
- Resources:
Carbon net zero in procurement | GCA