Dr Matt Sawyer

Director of SEE Sustainability; GP; Carbon Literacy Trainer

Dr Matt Sawyer worked as a GP for over 17 years in the North East of England. Now, he runs an environmental sustainability consultancy – SEE Sustainability – working to improve human and planetary health. He covers sustainability issues facing healthcare including understanding their carbon emissions footprint and helping to produce roadmaps and action plans to meet the NHS net zero ambition. He has a MSc in Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Management. 

He produced an online carbon footprint calculator for non-clinical emissions from General Practice https://www.gpcarbon.org/#/ 

He worked with associates to deliver training to Gloucestershire PCNs on environmentally sustainable general practice.

He part wrote and jointly edited a book – Environmentally Sustainable Primary Care – with Dr Mike Tomson. Available from the end 2024.

He has worked with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare and Greener Practice to deliver a Green Plan for Primary Care for South East London ICS. (https://www.ourhealthiersel.nhs.uk/about/our-sustainability-committment.htm and specifically https://selondonccg.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Primary-Care-Green-Plan-2022-2025.pdf ).

He has worked with North Yorkshire and Humber ICS to produce  the Carbon Footprint of General Practice for the area. further detals and full report available at https://humberandnorthyorkshire.org.uk/our-work/climate-change-sustainability/green-primary-care/

He delivers online Carbon Literacy Project accredited carbon literacy courses for primary and secondary care staff. https://seesustainability.co.uk/health-carbon-literacy 

He has produced a Decarbonisation Guide for general practices – https://seesustainability.co.uk/low-carbon-plan covering decarbonising energy and estates within primary care along with transport, procurement and the wider supply chain. This is being made available to a wider group of practices via the RCGP.

He provides a range of materials, documents, reports for carbon footprints from elsewhere, education resources and videos, which are available at https://seesustainability.co.uk/resources 

He has presented to a variety of audiences on topics such as ‘What GP partners need to know about NHS Net Zero ambitions & climate action’ and ‘Should primary care have its own green plan within the ICS Green Plan?‘ and written articles such as ‘How to ‘green’ your practice without costing the earth’ in Pulse Intelligence. (Summary available here), Demystifying carbon footprinting in practice – CPD for Pulse (Available here and GP Carbon Calculator: making it easier to support the NHS’ net zero ambitions) (Available here). He was a plenary speaker at WONCA 2022 presenting on environmental sustainability to primary care. further details at https://seesustainability.co.uk/blog/f/i-have-a-dream%E2%80%A6 and https://woncaeurope2022.org/en/plenary-speakers.