NurSus needed an educational resource for current and future healthcare professionals that communicates the carbon emissions and reductions that could be achieved in the NHS. One of the challenges of promoting sustainable practices is communicating abstract data and presenting it in a way that audiences can relate to. In this case, we needed to make carbon dioxide visible and real - not just a number. The project had a tight budget but demonstrates effectively that even basic animation can bring data to life. NurSus were able to take our image set and tailor it to their educational narratives and tools which you can see in the above film.
About the Project
NurSus conducted an audit of NHS clinical waste. The data showed the achievable carbon and financial savings based on appropriate waste segregation. Currently, a bag of waste for incineration produces 1.2 kg of CO2. However, items often end up in this bag that don't need incinerating. NurSus wanted to demonstrate that if waste habits changed and the appropriate segregation of waste was made then the potential carbon saving of incinerated waste could be reduced to 530 g CO2 (43% reduction).
Real World Visuals were able to take the abstract data from NurSus and translate this into a set of visually meaningful images. Using various points of scale, the slideshow animation demonstrates the potential emissions saved per bag, per hospital and per day in the NHS. This enables audiences to clearly identify with the problem of waste in micro and macro volumes. The image set communicates the achievable carbon saving that is possible by changing daily habits within the NHS.
Our basic image sets can enhance educational methods for presentations and animations to engaging audiences on environmental issues. Below is the final edit of what we delivered for the NurSus project.
The NurSus TOOLKIT project is an EU funded collaboration of four Universities: Plymouth (UK), Maastricht (The Netherlands), Jaen (Spain), Esslingen (Germany) that has produced teaching and learning resources related to health and sustainability in a range of languages.