The Greener Palliative Care Award provides a framework for progress in environmental sustainability. It uses existing experience and the available evidence to help drive forward environmentally sustainable practices, by showing a clear path towards progress in an area that can be difficult to approach.
Both the NHS and charitable organisations (e.g. hospices) can take part.
Clear, achievable standards are set out for each level. Supporting resources and examples are given, to help applicants work towards the levels. Actions also link to national work, such as within Greener NHS and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare.
The award can work alongside other initiatives within your organisation, such as developing and delivering on Green Plans, while offering actions that interested people from all professional groups (and volunteers) can work on.
The Palliative Care Sustainability Network also runs online education/practice sharing sessions for the whole sector, with successful Award winners sharing their experiences/expertise.
Please do get in touch by email to pallcaresusnet@gmail.com with any queries, or to join our team. We are always looking for volunteers to support our work!
Please note the Greener Palliative Care Award framework is subject to a creative commons licence.
Pilot Scheme
The scheme launched as a pilot in 2025 and announced our first Awards gained in March 2026.
We are continuing to develop the Silver and Gold Awards following the pilot stage. Look out for updates in 2027.
Who currently holds an Award?
We will post updates to this webpage when Award winners are confirmed. Please find the current Award winners listed here.
The first Awards were made in March 2026. Award levels are valid for 3 years, after which sites need to demonstrate they are still at this level or hopefully progress to the next level up!
We are proud and delighted to celebrate these organisations who have worked hard to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining the highest standards of care for patients and families.
Silver Award level
We will be sharing the criteria for this in 2027, and the process for application. All sites who wish to apply for silver will first need to achieve a Bronze Award.
Gold Award level
We will be sharing the criteria for this in 2027, and the process for application. All sites who wish to apply for Gold will first need to achieve a Bronze and Silver Award. For this level of Award we will offer more bespoke support.
Bronze Award level
We have made the Bronze Award criteria publicly available to encourage participation. Any palliative care organisation or team can work towards a Bronze Award. You don’t need to register with us to do this, but we do recommend signing up to our Palliative Care Sustainability Network page to ensure you are connected to others doing the same thing, and that you get the updates you need.
You can find the full bronze criteria here. Work towards completed these criteria, and keep evidence of your work as you go along.
How to gain a Bronze Award
We hold 2-3 cycles per year, where organisations can submit evidence of achieving the Bronze Award. Please sign up to our Palliative Care Sustainability Network page to receive updates on the opening and closing dates for submissions for each cycle.
We can assess 30 applications each window- if we receive more than this we will operate a cut off based on first come/first served in the assessment window.
We cannot meet with individual teams; but please do attend our drop in sessions if you have questions. We can respond to email questions. You may not have met all the criteria on your first attempt- we know this from the pilot stage. You can re-apply during the next cycle.
Assessment to gain an Award at Bronze is 3 step process and you must pass all 3 to gain an Award.
Step 1: Complete a narrative account of your progress against the Award domains, via an online form. Please contact us at pallcaresusnet@gmail.com for the link to this or see Network updates.
Step 2: Upload at least one sustainability QI project report/case report to the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare resources page. You will need to create an account to do this. A template to submit your resource can be found here.
These 2 steps will then be reviewed by our Assessment Group. If both stages have been completed to an acceptable level by the end of the submission window you will proceed to step 3.
If our assessors decide you have not met these 2 steps you will be given written feedback and invited to re-apply at the next round.
Step 3: Meeting with our assessment team. During this meeting you will need to have all your evidence available to share. Assessors will ask to see (via screen sharing) several pieces of evidence from across different domains during the meeting. You will not be told in advance which evidence this will be.
Assessors will confirm whether you have achieved your Bronze Award shortly after this evidence sharing meeting. If successful, you will then receive your Greener Palliative Care Award certificate and logo.
Why would I/my team want to do this?
Hopefully because you are all motivated to reduce your team’s environmental impact! But there are other clear benefits too. Increasingly there is a regulatory need to show work on environmentally sustainable healthcare is being done – for example the new CQC standard. Commissioned services will need to show evidence they are engaged with sustainability work, and for those in charitable settings our members have found funders may ask questions on this topic.
Alongside this, Sustainable Quality Improvement projects often improve quality and efficiency of care and can reduce costs.
We also know it’s a positive step for teams to work on together, improving team cohesion and job satisfaction as you all make positive changes.
FAQ’s
I’m interested – what’s the first step?
Contact us to let us know you’d like to learn more, by email to pallcaresusnet@gmail.com. We’ll ask you to sign up to our Palliative Care Sustainability Network page to ensure you are connected to others doing the same thing, and that you get the updates you need.
How is a level achieved?
You don’t have to do everything all at once! As you complete each Award standard, make sure to collect evidence to show what you have achieved. This could be project write ups, meeting minutes, photos of team events. We have a case study template you can complete. Please see under Bronze, Silver and Gold levels for specific information on how to submit an application for an Award.
There is no time limit on how long you can take to apply for your first level. We have designed the levels with the aim that each should be achievable within 12-18 months.
At present there is no cost for the Award scheme.
What evidence do you need to see?
Evidence varies depending on the standard, but is likely to include minutes of meetings, project reports, and data showing reductions in environmental impact. Attend one of our drop in sessions for more information, or view our Palliative Care Sustainability Network page to see our supporting resources.
How is the Award scheme organised and run?
You can see our governance details here, as well as details of our partner organisations. We have a multi-professional group who oversee the development of the award scheme, and an assessment group who review evidence submitted and decide when to award a Greener Palliative Care level. You can see details of the people on our groups here.
What happens after we have achieved the level?
You will keep the award for three years. If you choose to, within that time you can apply for the next level up!
After 3 years you will need to provide evidence to show you are still working on the standards at the level you obtained – or hopefully you will be ready to move up.
Gold awards will also need to show progress by submitting evidence of ongoing actions every 3 years.
I’m not sure which level to start at?
Our structure shows you which actions are needed at each level, and gives some examples to get you going. To achieve gold, you also need to have completed the bronze and silver actions (and for silver, to have completed the bronze).
As a rough idea, if your team haven’t done any work on this area before, start at ‘bronze‘ where the focus is on getting together, education, awareness raising and identifying the first areas to tackle.
Silver is if you already have a good awareness, with an environmental group set up, and will help you to broaden your focus and provide evidence.
Gold will ensure your changes are embedded in the organisation and you are striving to continue to make year on year progress.
We might add a platinum level one day!