Business sustainability is the consideration and management of environmental, social, and financial factors to ensure responsible, ethical, and ongoing organisational success.
Vita Health Group recognises sustainability as a business approach that will contribute to creating long-term value and positive impact for our service users, customers, colleagues, and the wider society.
As part of our mission of “Making People Better”, our delivery of high-quality patient-focused healthcare services will be underpinned by using all our resources sustainably. Legal requirements create a framework for this activity; however, Vita Health Group is committed to going further than only having a compliance focus, as we will strive for continuous improvement beyond this.
Sustainability is an integral part of our operations, including our planning processes, and it will remain that way to maximise the longevity of our organisation and the reach of its impact. We will demonstrate our sustainable practices to provide assurance to our stakeholders and to hold ourselves to account.
Vita Health Group is committed to Making People Better. Our purpose is underpinned by our values of leadership, being people-centred, and customer-focused, with an emphasis on quality and integrity. We have extended our purpose to encompass the environment and are committed to delivering and developing our business sustainably.
*VHG is committed to reach net-zero emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by 2030, aligned with our parent company Spire Healthcare. Our Scope 3 target is set to achieve net-zero emissions by no later than 2050, in line with the UK Government’s Climate Change Act (2008).
VHG recognises sustainability as an essential part of facing current and future global challenges, including those related to the environment. To be a truly sustainable company, we are considering all intersections of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. Where our actions related to any of these go beyond compliance and deliver positive benefits to those outside of the business, it is known as creating ‘social value’.
Our ambition is focused on embedding sustainability and social value into our business-as-usual practices and processes, to create a positive impact on the environment, as well as lasting social value and economic viability.
To align our operations with this view, our Sustainability & Social Value Strategy is divided into four themes, with each having a dedicated focus. We expanded the conventional three pillars of sustainability and added a fourth one “Better Communities” to fully encompass the positive impact we create on the communities.
VHG is committed to reaching net-zero emissions by no later than 2050*.
*VHG’s net-zero target is currently under review to better align with our parent company, Spire Healthcare, after the organisation’s acquisition in late 2023.
VHG, in conjunction with Carbon Footprint Ltd, has assessed its carbon footprint and has achieved a successful assessment of its 2023 GHG emissions, showing a reduction in both intensity metrics against the baseline year assessment (2021).
At VHG, we’ve historically gone above and beyond as standard. Subsequently, our social value strategy focuses on formalising our existing good practices to maximise impact via:
1. Direction: we’ve prioritised VHG’s strengths and Social Value activities that make the most sense for us and our communities. This is summarised in our 4-pillar strategy approach, above.
2. Intelligence: we’ve partnered with Social Value Portal™ for external consultancy. They’re supporting on activities such as strategy development, staff training, workshops, and more – using their expertise to guide us to our goal of becoming the Social Value Leader in Healthcare by 2026.
3. Insight: using the national TOMs framework to quantify our Social Value activities so we can track and monitor our impact; whilst also using a centralised data platform to store monitor, and analyse this data for intelligent decision-making.