Environmental Sustainability in Transplantation

The Environmental Sustainability in Transplantation (ESIT) group was established in March 2023, and is focused on establishing and nurturing a network of environmental sustainability focused transplant colleagues, whilst also providing guidance and leadership at a national level, to facilitate improvement in sustainable practice in transplant services.

Membership & Structure

Our members volunteer their time out of concern for the future and to help shape a sustainable transplant future. ESIT is comprised of transplant professionals from across the UK, across the multidisciplinary team, and across the entire pathway from organ donation to post-transplant care.

The current structure is:

• ESIT Champions Network – a group of activated transplant professionals across the UK with a desire to make positive change, in both their transplant units and personal life. This group is supported by ESIT with training and resources to help make change.
• ESIT Steering Group (Whole Group) - chaired by Dr Matt Welberry Smith (Consultant Renal Transplant Physician, Leeds). Membership extends across all 4 nations of the UK and consists of transplantation-focused healthcare professionals, sustainable healthcare experts, and statistical support. . The terms of reference for this group can be found here.
• ESIT Core Group for day-to-day operations - (Dr Matt Welberry Smith Consultant Renal Transplant Physician, Leeds), John O’Callaghan (Consultant Transplant Surgeon, Coventry), Rosa Montero (Consultant Nephrologist, St. Georges', London)), Carrie Scuffell (Transplant Development Manager, NHSBT), and Laura Barton (Programme Manager, NHSBT).

Background

This group was originally the NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) Working Group on Environmental Sustainability in Transplantation was formally convened in March 2023 by Prof. Derek Manas (Medical Director for Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation) with Dr Matt Welberry Smith (Consultant Transplant Physician, Leeds) and Mr John O'Callaghan (Consultant Transplant Surgeon, Oxford & Coventry) as co-chairs.

Our Vision

Enabling an environmentally sustainable future for transplant services in the UK.

Our Mission

Providing the UK transplant community with the data, training, resources, strategies and tools to improve environmental sustainability in their service delivery, and to increase the priority of environmental sustainability in UK transplantation as a whole.

To deliver our mission and vision, we will focus on improving understanding of environmental sustainability within transplantation, using an evidence-based approach, and will ensure the tools and knowledge we share are accessible and clear to understand, so that colleagues feel empowered to implement long-lasting positive change.

We want environmental sustainability to be considered a core priority for transplant centres and retrieval teams, and we aim to support the transplant community to embed environmental sustainability priorities as business as usual within clinical practice.

ESIT will influence positive change to achieve these aims through raising awareness, providing educational resources, benchmarking and reporting of sustainability aspects for transplant units, and leveraging funding for clinical pathways analysis across donation, retrieval, transplantation and post-transplant care.

The group's first focus was to provide the organ transplantation community with a straightforward guide for transplant units to use to move to more environmentally sustainable practice. This guidance was published as a top tips document to support rapid initial actions, you can access this guidance here.

We are now focused on delivering our 2025-28 strategy, which was launched in March 2025. As a group we are committed to:

Embedding sustainable clinical practice.

• Continually identifying opportunities for positive change, and ensuring change opportunities are made accessible for transplant colleagues to implement.
• Keeping a light shining on environmental sustainability within transplantation.
• Championing environmental sustainability within transplantation at a local and national level.

To deliver our vision we have set out 3 strategic priorities.

Raise awareness and increase engagement

To improve understanding and knowledge about environmental sustainability.

Influence long lasting positive change

By making change accessible through the development of toolkits, metrics and other resources.

Collaborate with partners

To maximise opportunities for improvement and drive innovation

This is a living strategy that will evolve over time as we continue to develop our thinking. Our progress against our strategy, including any updates we make, will be published here on our ESIT webpage.

Download a full copy of our 2025 to 2028 strategy and roadmap (PDF 367KB)