Blackrock Health

Our work is to establish and conserve permanent native woodland in Ireland, encouraging land regeneration and biodiversity. What inspired you to work with Hometree?
Sustainability is a cornerstone of everything we do at Blackrock Health. Safeguarding our communities and our planet by minimising the environmental impact of our operations is one of our strategic priorities. In the current climate crisis, we all must play a part in keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees. Ireland has set a target of reducing its carbon emissions by 7% annually, and hospital groups such as ours have a huge role to play in reducing our use of resources to support this ambition. Hometree’s work is ideally aligned with our environmental priorities in this regard.

You will not see some of the trees you are planting reach maturity, what has inspired such a long term vision?
The decision was born out of our commitment to long term growth as a group and healthcare team. Blackrock Health’s ambition is to become Ireland’s leading private hospital group and the key to doing that is retaining a world-class team that is capable, committed and enthusiastic about their work. We have planted 3,000 trees with Hometree, one for every member of our staff. As our trees grow, we hope that every member of our team will grow with us, as their careers continue to develop. In the widest sense, the fruits of the project should last for as long as the climate continues to support Irish native woodland trees. This is a terrific legacy, and one which reflects the extent to which we value every member of our team.

Have there been any key moments you can share about how you or your organisation decided to support a more abundant and healthier world?
During 2021, as we prepared for the launch of Blackrock Health and the transition from being four separate clinics to one, unified organisation, we consulted extensively with staff as we developed our strategic priorities, vision, mission, values and brand identity. The feedback we received made clear to us how important our concerns our to everyone on our team, and we knew from then on that we would need to make the commitment to sustainability a foundational pillar of our new approach to healthcare. In addition to working with Hometree we are also developing a Group Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy aimed at helping us to reduce the environmental impact of our operations and provide positive value.

In June, we gave our team the opportunity to see the fruit of their feedback, when we organised a staff visit to Hometree’s site in Clare, where we have planted our trees. The progress the saplings have made in just a few short months was very encouraging to see.

Would you like to share any key lessons life has taught you?
The biggest lesson our organisation has learned since launching in March, is that we truly are better together. While each of our clinics had a strong reputation in its own right previously, bringing them together has allowed us to grow our expert team and continue to achieve higher standards and even better outcomes in everything that we do. It is in coming to learn the value of collaboration that we were initially compelled to reach out to Hometree. We are continuing to apply the lessons we have learned as we seek to engage further with external partners both in and out of healthcare.