The Royal Society of Medicine is committed to environmental sustainability and tackling climate change by:

  • Understanding environmental issues and sharing this information
  • Developing innovative and flexible solutions to bring about change
  • Sourcing products and services which are produced and distributed in a responsible fashion
  • Recognising that managed social responsibility is essential to our future
  • Investing the Society’s funds in a responsible manner
  • Encouraging all our suppliers and partners to share in our aims
  • Monitoring and measuring our progress

Education programmes

Through our primary charitable purpose, which is to provide education for doctors and other healthcare professionals, we highlight key health issues such as the impact of climate change within our education programmes.

Operations

We have implemented an effective environmental system throughout our operations in 1 Wimpole Street, which not only reduces the impact of our activities on the environment, but also increases our efficiency and effectiveness.

Thoughtful and considerate staff

The RSM recognises the responsibility our staff have in contributing to good environmental management. We seek to harness and channel the enthusiasm and interest shown by our employees and provide the appropriate training and support to ensure all staff exercise their environmental responsibility.

Responsible suppliers and partners

The RSM promotes and encourages good environmental practice to the organisations we work with, including suppliers and partners. We seek to do business with those who share our vision.

In our Club, hotel and hospitality operations, we source our food ingredients from suppliers who can demonstrate that they are promoting sustainability and minimising food miles. This means using butchers who can trace every link in their supply chain back to the farm, using fruit and vegetables from British growers and serving tea and coffee from importers who are as committed to the welfare of the growers as they are to the quality of the product.

A commitment to recycling

We recycle:

  • Paper
  • Glass
  • Cardboard
  • Cooking oil
  • Plastic
  • Cans
  • Batteries
  • Printer cartridges
  • Electrical equipment
  • IT equipment

Reducing our environmental footprint

Within 1 Wimpole Street we:

  • Manage our energy consumption by turning off unnecessary light and climate control to our rooms through a computerised Building Management System (BMS)
  • Procure electricity from 100% renewable energy sources: wind, biomass and solar
  • Reduce electrical load on aircon chilling plant by using fresh air only when the weather is below 19 degrees and by not using any re-circulation function
  • Use low energy light bulbs wherever possible
  • Send all waste food to Veolia UK | Leeming Biogas gas-to-grid anaerobic digestion
  • Buy from small independent suppliers and have seasonal produce tailored to our conference menus
  • Minimise cardboard packaging on deliveries where possible, for example our vegetable supplier uses returnable crates
  • Have an on-site water purification system which has saved annually an estimated 92,000 1 litre glass bottles from being transported and saves an estimated 7,200 tonnes of carbon emissions
  • Have signed up to the Meeting Industry Association’s 20% less campaign in our commitment against single-use plastic
  • Use environmentally friendly cleaning products
  • Use electronic documentation and files where possible to limit paper consumption
  • Use meeting room notepads made from FSC-certified paper
  • Promote the use of hybrid events to reach domestic and overseas delegates, in order to reduce their carbon footprint
  • Encourage the streaming of events so fringe delegates can access events at a time that suits them
  • Encourage the use of video conferencing in all meetings allowing potential overseas attendees to reduce their carbon footprint by accessing the event remotely
  • Encourage hotel guests to reuse towels, and reduce linen use during their stay which in turn uses less water and detergent
  • Have aerators on taps and showers in the bedrooms to reduce water usage

Within 1 Wimpole Street we don’t:

  • Use air freight transport wherever possible, allowing us to limit “food miles”.
  • Use disposable or non-recyclable packaging.
  • Use aerosols as all our cleaning materials are held within reusable containers.
  • Believe in waste.

Investments

The RSM’s Council is aware of its need to invest the Society’s funds in a responsible manner and to have a positive impact on people and the planet. This is done by investing in funds that adopt screening policies that exclude areas of significant social or environmental harm and integrate ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors within the investment selection process. One such exclusion is the direct holding of investments whose primary business is in fossil fuels (thermal coal and tar sands), screened at more than 10% of revenue. We are in the process of extending this exclusion to cover the extraction, production and refining of coal, oil and gas.