NHS Scotland - climate emergency and sustainability: annual report 2021 to 2022

6. Greenspace and Biodiversity

NHS Scotland’s outdoor estate is a major public asset. As of 2020, its estate was one of the biggest in Europe, with over 1,500 buildings including circa 200 hospitals and assets worth over £7.2 billion. The NHS Greenspace Demonstration Project 2013-2018, was established to show how improvements to outdoor spaces around existing and new hospitals and health centres could be delivered in practice and to assess the benefits of this investment for health and wellbeing, biodiversity and climate change. Work is now ongoing to build on this and realise the full potential of NHS greenspace across Scotland through improved data. National mapping of the whole NHS outdoor estate resource is underway and tools for measuring natural capital value and better managing the resource are in development. This will enable strategic priorities to be identified and support Health Boards in more sustainable management of the NHS estate which will improve outcomes for biodiversity, increase accessible greenspace and support adoption of nature-based solutions to protect and enhance biodiversity, contribute to climate action and improve health and wellbeing outcomes.