Despite their importance to both the NHS and the public sector more widely, many sustainability and Net Zero projects fail to get past the drawing board. To discover why some of these projects succeed while others stall, Steve Heape, leader of Project Development at the Carbon and Energy Fund (CEF), spoke with two leading experts in the sustainability space.
Across the NHS and wider public sector, sustainability is no longer a fringe concern. Boards sign off Green Plans, carbon targets are embedded into national policy, and estates teams are under increasing pressure to decarbonise ageing infrastructure while keeping hospitals operational around the clock. And yet, for all the ambition, many sustainability and Net Zero projects struggle to progress beyond feasibility studies and outline business cases.
The paradox is striking. The case for action is often compelling: volatile energy prices, mounting maintenance backlogs, and the growing operational risks of obsolete plant. But even when the technical and financial arguments stack up, projects can still stall — quietly, incrementally, and without a single obvious point of failure.
Those involved in delivering complex energy and decarbonisation programmes say the reasons are rarely simple. Cost is frequently blamed, but in practice it is only one factor among many. More often, the real constraints lie in governance, organisational capacity, confidence in delivery, and the sheer human effort required to push large projects through already overstretched systems.
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