Creating A Sustainable Future For The Care Sector: Insights From Aaron White

Aaron is the Assistant Director of Corporate Services and sustainability at Oakland Care and has been supporting sustainability in the care sector for several years. His love of nature and desire to protect the environment started at age six, when he helped dig ponds and protect wildlife in his parents’ garden.

He later studied environmental management at university and began his working career in a zoo, before joining Oakland Care.

With Aaron’s help, Oakland Care has taken a grassroots approach to sustainability, making practical changes within their care homes, which has helped them achieve Green Mark Level 3 accreditation and maintain carbon-neutral status for four consecutive years – Oakland Care is the only care group to achieve this! 

Creating a sustainable future for the care sector

Oakland Care are leading the care sector towards a sustainable future.

Aaron introduced Green Champions to the Care Homes; each home has one or two champions who are dedicated to improving their home and making it more sustainable.

He chairs the Green Committee, a meeting where the Green Champions across all the Oakland Care homes come together to discuss and share ideas, see what has been working and implement successful initiatives company-wide.

September is Greener Month

September is designated as ‘Greener Month‘ with company-wide strategy reviews to see what improvements can be made.

With the Green Committee meetings bringing new ideas to the homes, starting small and working their way up, Oakland Care has gone above and beyond for sustainability. 

Constructing sustainable solutions

Each new home Oakland Care builds aims to exceed the sustainability performance of previous homes built.

All Oakland Care buildings achieve BREEAM accreditation, and they have been rated as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ for structural sustainability and operational efficiency.

As the sustainability solutions go from a small suggestion by a Green Champion to being implemented across all sites, new ideas are coming from the bottom at each meeting.

This allows individual homes to implement unique initiatives, like clothes swapping schemes, beekeeping, and cinema screenings showing sustainability-focused films like Dark Waters and Erin Brockovich.

Aaron aims to encourage a 10% reduction approach as a realistic starting point for energy and transportation changes, but suggests even small, consistent 1% improvements work together to create a massive sustainability impact over time.

The Oakland Care team continues to improve on their mission to drive the care sector forward on the road to a sustainable future. 

Want to know more? 

If you would like to find out more about the sustainability efforts at Oakland Care, you can contact the team via email or follow us on Instagram @caretosharepodcast.

Additional information is also available on our website, with links to all of our blogs and details about our sustainable homes.

Listen to our full podcast with Aaron here.