Sustainability explained

Biodegradable items can be broken down into increasingly smaller pieces by bacteria, fungi, or microbes to be reabsorbed by the surrounding environment, ideally without causing any pollution. Some things are naturally biodegradable, like food and plants, while other items break down into harmful chemicals or gases.

Everything we use or create can technically be called biodegradable because eventually everything will break down – from organic waste and wooden cutlery to plastic packaging or steel machinery – it would just take a very, very long time.

Biodiversity is all the different kinds of life you’ll find in one area — the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms like bacteria that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems to maintain balance and support life. Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.

A metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based on their global-warming potential, by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming potential.

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is a global non-profit organisation that operates a widely used environmental disclosure system. It enables companies, regions, and public authorities to report their environmental impacts through structured questionnaires. All environmental reporting to CDP is open access.

When talking about climate change, footprint is a metaphor for the total impact that something has, and carbon is a shorthand for all the different greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. The term carbon footprint, therefore, is a shorthand to describe the best estimate that we can get of the full climate impact of something, which could be anything – an activity, an item, a lifestyle, a company, a country, or even the whole world.

This means removing or sequestering more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than is emitted. This might include a bioenergy process with carbon capture and storage.

Carbon neutral means that any greenhouse gases (GHG) released into the atmosphere are balanced by investing in projects that reduce the equivalent amount of GHG elsewhere. These are often referred to as offsetting or carbon sequestration projects.

The process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is one method of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the goal of reducing global warming and climate change. Forests and woodlands are one form of natural carbon sequestration.

An artificial carbon sequestration process would be carbon capture and storage (CCS), a process that captures carbon dioxide from large industrial facilities and power plants, preventing its release into the atmosphere. The captured carbon is then permanently stored deep underground in geological formations like depleted oil and gas reservoirs.

The circular economy is a model of production and consumption that involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended.

In practice, it implies reducing waste to a minimum. When a product reaches the end of its life, its materials are kept and recycled within the economy wherever possible, to be used productively again and again and thereby creating further value.

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Warmer temperatures over time are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature.

Compostable materials degrade in a short time period in a controlled composting environment. Compostable items are often made from plant materials, like starch, and break down into materials such as water, oxygen, and compost. For a product to be classified as compostable, the material must biodegrade naturally without leaving visual remnants or unacceptable levels of toxic residues.

Compostable and biodegradable are often used interchangeably.

COP is short for “Conference of the Parties”, meaning those countries who joined are “party to”, in legal terms, the international treaty called the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

COP is an international climate meeting held each year by the United Nations. These conferences bring together governments, scientists, civil society, and businesses to assess progress, set targets, and negotiate agreements aimed at addressing climate change — such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the idea that a company should play a positive role in the community and consider the environmental and social impact of business decisions. It is closely linked to sustainability and ESG and focuses on non-financial factors that companies should consider in decision making.

The conversion to an economic system that sustainably reduces and compensates the emissions of greenhouse gases. The long-term goal is to create a CO₂e-free global economy.

Eco-friendly means that a product/process does not harm or affect the planet in a negative way. It is generally thought of as a marketing term.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) are a set of standards measuring a business's impact on society, the environment, and how transparent and accountable it is.

Fossil fuels are found in the Earth’s crust and contain carbon and hydrogen. They can be burned to produce energy, which releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources; they take hundreds of millions of years to form and when burnt they cannot easily be replenished.

Human activities have been the main cause of climate change since the 1800s – mostly due to burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, which traps the sun’s heat within our atmosphere.

A term used to describe the relative potency, molecule for molecule, of a greenhouse gas, taking account of how long it remains active in the atmosphere. The global-warming potentials (GWPs) currently used are those calculated over 100 years. Carbon dioxide is taken as the gas of reference and given a 100-year GWP of 1.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are gases in the earth’s atmosphere that trap heat. During the day, the sun shines through the atmosphere, warming the earth’s surface.

At night the earth's surface cools, releasing heat back into the air, some of which is trapped by greenhouse gases (such as methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour) in the atmosphere; this is how the earth’s temperature maintains an average of 14˚C. As we burn fossil fuels, we release large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping more heat in the atmosphere and causing global warming.

Global temperatures have accelerated in the past 30 years and are now the highest since records began.

Greenwashing involves making an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company's products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they do. Three common types of greenwashing are the use of environmental imagery, misleading labels and language, and hidden trade-offs where the company emphasises one sustainable aspect of a product, but they also engage in environmentally damaging practices.

For example, a rug could be labelled “50% more recycled content than before”. In fact, the manufacturer increased the recycled content to 3% from 2%. Although technically true, the message conveys the false impression that the rug contains a significant amount of recycled fibre.

A materiality assessment is the process of assessing potential environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that could affect a business or its stakeholders. The process results in a short-list of topics that inform company strategy, targets, and reporting.

Microplastics are extremely small pieces of plastic debris (less than five millimetres) found in the environment, largely resulting from the disposal and breakdown of consumer products and industrial waste. Some products are made small intentionally; for example, cosmetic microbeads used in facial scrubs.

Studies have shown possible links between inhalation or ingestion of microplastics and irritation of the airways, diabetes, infertility, and the potential onset of cancer in cases of chronic exposure.

When an organisation contributes more to environmental regeneration and climate mitigation than it consumes or emits, it is said to be net positive, as it results in a net benefit to the planet. For example, a building is net positive if it generates more clean energy than it consumes, or sequesters more carbon than it emits.

Net zero is a state when no incremental emissions are released into the atmosphere. It is achieved when absolute emissions are reduced to as close to zero as possible, and any remaining GHG emissions are taken back out of the atmosphere through carbon sequestration (for example, trees absorb carbon dioxide so tree planting is a form of carbon sequestration).

The first step to becoming net zero is to set science-based targets to cut emissions to as close to zero as possible and to keep the global temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels.

Nitrogen dioxide, or NO₂, is a gaseous air pollutant composed of nitrogen and oxygen. NO₂ forms when fossil fuels such as coal, oil, gas, or diesel are burned at high temperatures (for example, emissions from car exhausts). Short-term exposure to concentrations of NO₂ can cause inflammation of the airways and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections and to allergens.

The ozone layer is a thin shield of gas in the Earth's atmosphere that protects the planet and humans by absorbing the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays.

Most of the ozone-depleting substances emitted by human activities remain in the stratosphere for decades, meaning that ozone layer recovery is a very slow, long process. The hole grew in the years following ratification of the Montreal Protocol, due to the lag caused by the fact that ozone-depleting substances (such as hydrofluorocarbons in fridges) remain in the stratosphere for a long time.

Formally, planetary health has been defined as “the health of human civilisation and the natural systems on which it depends”. Ultimately, it means human health in the long term is dependent on the environment around us, from the air we breathe and the temperature and climate around us, to the water we drink and the food we eat.

Particulate matter (PM) is everything in the air that is not a gas and therefore consists of a huge variety of chemical compounds and materials, some of which can be toxic. Due to the small size of many of the particles that form PM some of these may enter the bloodstream and enter our organs.

Exposure to PM can result in serious impacts to health and therefore particulates are classified according to size. Based on available evidence of PM’s negative effects on health, particles <10 micrometres in diameter (PM10) and <2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5) are the most frequently measured and reported for air quality statistics.

Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed. Sunlight and wind, for example, are such sources that are constantly being replenished.

Science-based targets are greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, informed by independent climate science.

They ensure a company’s emissions are aligned to what scientists say is needed to limit warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels and avoid the worst effects of climate change to safeguard human life on earth.

Scopes 1, 2 and 3 are a way of categorising the different kinds of greenhouse gases an organisation emits through its operations and value chain.

• Scope 1 - Emissions created by the organisation itself: emissions from owned or controlled sources, including building operations and company vehicles.
• Scope 2 - Emissions from the energy an organisation uses to operate, including electricity, heat, and steam purchased to run the business.
• Scope 3 - Emissions created by other entities to service the organisation, including emissions from activities outside of our direct control. For example, emissions from a health treatment an insurance customer claims for (including the emissions associated with their travel to that treatment), emissions from investments, and emissions from products and services used by a company.

At Bupa, we view sustainable healthcare as "delivering high quality care in an affordable way, while minimising the impact on the environment". It describes a system that meets the health needs of the present, without compromising the health of future generations and is characterised by the three principles of Sustainable Prevention, Sustainable Pathways, and Sustainable Practice.

Sustainable Prevention

Keeping people as healthy as possible for as long as possible in a sustainable way – reducing the risk of them becoming unwell or needing to consume healthcare resources.

Sustainable Pathways

Simplifying access to high-value, efficient and integrated care – getting patients to the most appropriate service first time and helping to prevent duplication and waste.

Sustainable Practices

Delivering treatments, interventions, and services at the point of care or utilising alternative solutions (e.g. digital solutions) with a lesser environmental impact to achieve equivalent clinical outcomes.

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was created to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial information, such as climate-related risks and opportunities, through their existing reporting processes.

The four pillars of TCFD recommendations are governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.