sustainability Archives

Frequent collaborator with Practice Plan Group, Dental Business and Sustainability Consultant, Mark Topley, outlines how adopting a positive attitude towards sustainability can save more than just the planet. What some practices fail to appreciate is that we can cut costs through sustainability. One of the biggest struggles that dental practices have right now is with their teams: finding good people and keeping good people. It can be very expensive to recruit new team members or to retain the right kind of people. Often the real reason people leave is not about salary. People move on because they don't feel they are going to be valued or that the work that they do actually matters. A Gallup survey found that people that worked in responsible businesses were four times less likely to leave the business because of that sense of responsibility and commitment to the community. Employees in these types of businesses are also more productive because they are more engaged, and they're less likely to make mistakes so are then less costly. Also, to keep one dental nurse the recruitment cost saved is around £5,000 which is made up of loss of earnings, loss of productivity, and additional recruitment costs through advertising. So, if you can just keep one person by being more sustainable, it more than pays for itself as well as the additional savings you’ll get through cost savings. Good for patients Statistics show that patients want responsible practices. Almost 9 in 10 consumers now expect a business to do good sustainably and responsibly as part of their day-to-day operations. So, they're not just looking for a practice where you do teeth. They want you to be socially and environmentally responsible. If you can do that, it sets you apart so, they’re more likely to come to you. They're also more likely to be loyal, more likely to stay and more likely to pay more. The price sensitivity of people that subscribe to responsible businesses is around 9% higher. So, people will pay around 9% more without batting an eyelid if they feel that their practice is responsible and sustainable. So, it’s worth paying attention to this. Good for compliance We can't talk about sustainability without mentioning the CQC (Care Quality Commission). The CQC is evolving and now looks at sustainability and responsibility as part of the Well Led standards. Inspectors are not just wanting you to tick a box and say ‘yes, we can do this’. They want to see the difference in the practice because they're trying to future proof dental practices. The government has various targets for net zero for reduction in waste for conservation of resources. They cannot achieve those goals without using either a carrot or a stick for the majority of healthcare in the UK because healthcare is a huge part of the government’s responsibility. Which means NHS dentistry and NHS medical care is a big part of their focus. Whether your practice is private or not, the CQC regulates everybody. So, this will be passed down. They want you to be more resilient, show strong leadership and sustainability is part of this. When it comes to sustainability in the practice I focus on eight areas. They are: Carbon footprint The big hitters in this are: • tracking how much you are reducing your energy • encouraging your team to travel sustainably • encouraging your patients to travel sustainably • measuring your impact. You could measure your impact through something as simple as a spreadsheet all the way up to bespoke software which helps you to see how much energy you typically use in a month. You can reduce your carbon footprint by starting with a benchmark. You may find it surprising, but 60% of your carbon footprint in a dental practice is travel to and from work and patients’ travel to the practice. So, the more you can do to encourage your staff to lift share, take public transport or use cycle to work schemes the better. When it comes to patients, combining appointments so that families all come together, doing treatments all in one go rather than spreading them out over lots of different appointments, these will help reduce your carbon footprint. Biodiversity This can be as simple as having a wildlife friendly area. If your practice has no grounds, or if you are inside a building, then little things like window boxes can help. Also, indoor plants will help with air quality and also people feel better if they work in buildings that have greenery around. Use native plants rather than foreign ones as that will help insect life and bird life. And don't use harmful things if you don't need to. There are now certified sustainably minded cleaning products that you can use within surgery. So consider switching to them. Resource conservation This includes saving water through water saving devices. Look for something that can help with water conservation such as taps that don’t keep running when they’re not needed. This also helps with bills because you pay for water either through the sewage, the wastewater, or your meter. Employ resource saving behaviours such as using less paper and trying to encourage people to use fewer resources around the practice. This will save wastage and money too. Use local suppliers This will cut down the carbon footprint of supplies and help to boost the local economy. So, support independent local suppliers and use eco-friendly products. If your general dental supplier doesn't have a green line, ask them why not? Put pressure on them to show you what they're doing about their sustainability. Where you can find sustainable vendors. Recycling Recycling can be bewildering at times and people don't always understand what should go in a recycling bin and what should be general waste. If team members aren't sure and they can't see a picture of what they're supposed to put in the right kind of bins, then they won’t comply and will take the path of least resistance, which is to put it in the general waste. So, signage and training are important. It's great if you can provide a recycling point for ‘unusual’ things in the practice. Things such as batteries, print cartridges and so on, often have a charity component tied to those which makes it a good thing to do. Health waste is another thing to recycle. You can buy a box from TerraCycle, where people can bring toothbrushes, and toothpaste tubes because those things can be recycled, they’re just too expensive to recycle through the normal recycling route that we use through councils. There is now a brand of aligner on the market, which is a single layer of plastic which can be recycled. They are recycled by the manufacturer into 3D printing spools, which are then used in healthcare. Single use plastic Wherever you can switch to reusable rather than single use products. There are lots of things on the market now that are reusable. One example is rinse cups. A rinse cup by the side of the chair need not be plastic or paper. It can be stainless steel. As long as it has the CE mark it can go through the autoclave. You would need about six or eight per surgery but that's all you need to invest in. After that it’s virtually no cost. It's a great talking point with a patient and allows you to explain it’s part of the practice’s efforts to be more sustainable as it cuts down on the waste we create. So, switching to reusable items is a great thing to do. Also finding greener alternatives with other things such as cleaning products and reusable items like washable patient bibs, are all great too. If you have to send things out through the post or via courier, try switching away from bubble wrap to some of that honeycomb paper that expands instead. Management This is a key issue. Having a green champion who has been empowered to go and do all these things and put them into practice is very important. It’s also good to have some simple goals such as ‘how much energy can we save off the electricity bill compared with this time last year?’ Try to gamify this wherever you can. Offer a prize for hitting a particular target and then make sure you review it. This can be a powerful way to engage the team. It's not about KPIs, it's about something fun that we're doing together, which has a bigger cause other than treating patients. Communication Share what you're doing with the team, and also with your patients. Once you have your sustainability goals in place it's great to be able to put them on your website and tell people what you're committed to, why you’ve made those commitments, what you are doing about them and share your progress. To find out how to make sustainability easy, practical, and affordable for busy dental teams visit Go Practice Green and sign up to the programme. About Mark Mark Topley is committed to fostering work environments that inspire and energise. He is the driving force behind the Great Boss Academy, which focuses on holistic leadership development, creating resilient leaders who can not only withstand tough times but thrive in them.

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