To coincide with Earth Month, end of life charity Marie Curie has installed electric vehicle charging points at its nine UK hospices, including its Hospice in Solihull, West Midlands.
The project, which was partly funded by Arnold Clark who has supported the charity for several years, will enable visitors, patients, and staff at the hospices to charge their electric cars whilst working or visiting. The initiative was made as part of the charity’s sustainability plan. Marie Curie has committed to follow in the footsteps of the NHS and reach Net Zero emissions by 2050 (2045 in Scotland).
This will be achieved through monitoring and reducing energy consumption, procuring green energy, energy generation, moving to hybrid working, working with supply chains, reducing waste, and switching to electric vehicles, including company cars, community pool cars and fleet vehicles. The first steps in the transition to an electric fleet have been to add a greater range of electric vehicles to the company car suite and remove all diesel options, move to electric for community pool cars and install the chargers on site for staff, patient, and family use.
Georgina Bushell, Partnerships Manager at Marie Curie, said: “As part of Marie Curie’s ambitions to become more sustainable, we are delighted that each of our nine hospices now has electric vehicle charging points. This will be of great benefit to our hospice staff, especially to our Nurses who visit patients in their own homes, as well as to people visiting loved ones in our hospices.
“Having Arnold Clark’s support has been invaluable as its donation has covered a fifth of the installation costs. The company has been a long-term supporter of Marie Curie and we’re grateful for the funding we have received towards these nine charging points.”
An Arnold Clark spokesperson said: "Marie Curie is a wonderful charity that provides support to so many people throughout the UK and we're delighted to have helped with this project.
"We recognise that the automotive industry is evolving, and the number of EV drivers on the roads will continue to grow. Therefore, having EV chargers at each of their nine hospices in the UK will be a huge benefit for any visitors, patients and staff."
The electric vehicle charging points are installed at Marie Curie hospices in Cardiff, Bradford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, West Midlands, Liverpool, Hampstead, and Newcastle. The chargers are for private use by the Marie Curie community only.
