Sustainability

Action on sustainability

As part of our sustainability program, BlueCare is working to reduce impacts across energy, emissions, waste and water.

Carbon footprint and energy

• BlueCare’s passenger fleet has been changing to smaller and more eco-friendly vehicles. In 2020, 36% of our fleet are hybrid, avoiding close to 600,000 litres of fuel and 1,500 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) a year.
• In 2019, an expansion of solar power more than doubled BlueCare’s solar generation capacity, adding 192kW of panels across five new sites. BlueCare now generates 152,000kWh per year; enough to power 33 Queensland households.
• BlueCare is saving 525,000kWh a year (114 households’ yearly electricity use) thanks to LED lighting upgrades at 27 of our aged care facilities.
• In 2018, Energy Management Plans were developed and are being progressively implemented for 30 of our aged care sites, to identify even more ways to reduce electricity, gas and water.

Waste

• DocuSign – an electronic signature tool – is being progressively rolled out across the organisation. Thanks to this tool, BlueCare avoided over 12,000 sheets of paper in 2020.
• In 2020 and 2021 – with support and sponsorship from Cleanaway – we have increased our recycling rate by four percentage points through the introduction of new recycling services, colour-coded waste receptacles and signage, and staff training in our aged care facilities.
• In 2018, recycling at our Customer Service Centre increased to 30% from less than 5%, after replacing under-desk bins with personal mini desktop bins and introducing color-coded commingle, paper and general waste bins.

Staff engagement

• Activities (e.g. competitions, workshops, calls to action) to promote participation in awareness campaigns such as Earth Hour, World Environment Day, and National Recycling Week.
• Our Green Champions network encourages and supports staff to implement positive sustainability changes in their workplace.
• The 2018 Greening UCQ survey asked our staff to share their experiences and ideas about sustainability in their workplaces; the results have helped us understand our current level of staff engagement in sustainability.

Leadership and advocacy

Through UnitingCare’s wider sustainability efforts, BlueCare is engaged in advocacy and policy development on issues such as energy planning, climate change mitigation and adaptation.

• BlueCare has partnered with the University of Sunshine Coast and Griffith University on a climate change adaptation project to reduce heat stress among aged care residents through ‘green’ infrastructure.
• We represent our client and community groups in advisory forums such as the Energy Queensland Customer Council, Queensland Health and Wellbeing Climate Adaptation Plan, and QCOSS Social Vulnerability and Climate Change workshops.
• We are passionate about knowledge sharing – we are sharing the lessons learned from our sustainability efforts at industry conferences, collaboration forums and in the tertiary sector.