Partnering with Gibraltar Health Authority on the route to net zero
- By Philips
- December 17 2025
- 3 min read
Gibraltar Health Authority (GHA) and Philips conducted a 360° Sustainability Assessment to kickstart their journey towards reducing carbon emissions and advancing GHA’s net zero goals
At-a-glance:
- As part of an existing Managed Service partnership, GHA and Philips worked together to support the hospital’s net-zero goals
- A 360° sustainability assessment identified key focus areas like supply chain, equipment, and clinical operations
- Early actions have cut waste emissions by 5% and saved £45k through smarter stock management
- Theatre costs dropped 60% thanks to NHS-aligned procurement and efficient resource use
GHA and Philips share a commitment to enabling sustainable, high-quality healthcare that minimizes environmental impact. In line with net-zero ambitions of the UK and Gibraltar governments, GHA has set sustainability goals across energy, waste, travel, people, care, and supply chain. These efforts aim to reduce carbon emissions, air pollution, waste, and improve energy efficiency.
As part of their 16-year strategic partnership, GHA and Philips conducted a 360° Sustainability Assessment, focusing on supply chain, medical equipment, and radiology operations. The results laid the foundation for GHA’s Green Plan, with a de-carbonization roadmap outlining key initiatives that GHA is actively implementing. These early steps highlight GHA’s commitment to sustainability and progress towards net-zero emissions.
Example findings from the 360-sustainability assessment
Several key opportunity areas were identified, which GHA and Philips collaboratively prioritized, leading to the creation of sustainability charters for each. Some examples are highlighted below:
Supply chain
- Opportunity area: Streamlined and data-driven procurement, supply chain processes and waste management on a hospital-wide level.
- Expected impact: Effective usage and centralized management of stock will lead to reduced costs, while demonstrating best practice for sustainable procurement in the community
Medical equipment
- Opportunity area: Proactive maintenance of equipment and lifecycle management to optimize sustainable use of medical technology.
- Expected impact: Newer equipment onboarded as part of long-term partnership will contribute to a 40% reduction in carbon over its lifetime.
Clinical operations
- Opportunity area: Optimal and efficient use of equipment and consumables across the workflows.
- Expected impact: Enhance operational efficiency for staff, streamline patient throughput, and reduce waiting lists and wait times, while increasing both patient and staff awareness of sustainable practices in consumable and equipment usage.
Sustainability in action
The GHA team are already implementing the below initiatives.
Waste management: Reducing the amount of waste generated and reorganizing waste flows. A bigger focus on recycling and waste separation with new processes and bins has led to:
- Estimated £10k in cost savings, and a 5% reduction in emissions from clinical waste (May to December 2024, vs 2023)
- Over 50% of departments adopting smaller clinical bins to reduce waste and contribute to a more sustainable waste management system (May 2024 to February 2025)
- A formalized process for non-clinical waste removal and recycling in partnership with a local business, alongside placement of organic waste recycling bins across GHA wards and common areas, facilitating effective waste distribution (since February 2025)
Supply chain: Centralizing stock management using Omnicell to reduce over-ordering and stock expiration, introducing green procurement guidelines in line with the NHS in the UK, and streamlining supplier processes has resulted in:
- Savings of £45k through improvements to the off-site storage facility and better oversight of stock (May 2024 to March 2025 vs 2023)
- 60% reduction in theatre expenditures through strategic cost-savings initiatives and more efficient resource allocation (April 2024 to February 2025)
- 58% of theatre products secured through the NHS supply chain, resulting in a 28% reduction in the average product price (May to December 2024)
Philips provided us with critical insights we needed to act - an essential step in our ongoing journey toward a sustainable, culture-driven transformation.
Kevin McGee OBE IPFA
Director General
Gibraltar Health Authority
The engagement of the GHA team has been instrumental to the success of this project. Together, we’ve transformed hypotheses into action, leveraging data to provide GHA with valuable insights and clear starting points.
Dominique Schut
Sustainability Engagements Manager
Philips Group Sustainability
Partnering with Gibraltar Health Authority on the route to net zero
Copy this URLto share this story with your professional network
Disclaimer
Data on file, provided by the Gibraltar Health Authority.
Results from case studies are not predictive of results in other cases. Results in other cases may vary.