MO Sajard, described as a 'one-man army' of driving sustainability, has been nominated in the Green Hero category in this year’s Proud of Barnsley awards.
Mo, 49, is sustainability manager at Barnsley Hospital and is recognised by colleagues for his tireless work in his field.
The nomination said: "I'm putting Mo forward for this award, as he has single handedly provisioned the delivery of loads of Green Initiatives at Barnsley Hospital. While we appreciate it is Mo's job in the sense that he is the sustainability manager, most trusts have
sustainability teams of people consisting of eight to 20 people to deliver initiatives.
"Mo doesn’t have this at Barnsley Hospital, but has driven the trust as a pioneer of sustainability in the NHS.
“Mo led, and formulated, our green plan which aims for the organisation to be carbon neutral by 2040 (five years before the NHS sector target).”
Mo’s proudest achievement during his ten years at the hospital was last year when he secured £3.72m funding towards upgrading the infrastructure to support the installation of sustainable technologies to make the hospital more energy efficient and less reliant on fossil fuels.
Mo, who hails from Nottingham now considers Barnsley his second home, has delivered many other sustainability successes include:
Ensured the Trust sources all grid electricity from 100 per cent renewable sources
Organised the installation of 22 electric charging points, which have driven the uptake of staff electric vehicles
Driven the Hospital Pharmacy to cut 20,000 plastic bags by switching to paper
Secured £1m funding to install over 4,000 LED lights with built in motion sensors and daylight harvesting
Switched from single-use plastic cups to paper cups at water coolers and removed plastic cutlery from our restaurants
Together with colleagues, desflurane anaesthetic gas was removed, saving the equivalent of 374 trans-Atlantic flights worth of Carbon emissions
Recently installed a secure 32-bike cycle hub with power sockets to charge electric bikes
Secured funding to install a large electrical transformer, upgrade the building management system and the installation of air source heat pumps to replace fossil fuel heating systems
Installed both indoor and outdoor recycling bins across the hospital with zero waste to landfill.
The nomination continued: "Mo is a humble man who just gets on with his job and actively avoids limelight. However, as a 'one-man-army' of driving sustainability, he definitely deserves recognition as he makes a difference to the green agenda singlehandedly, daily.
" He drives an anchor institute like Barnsley Hospital into a much greener and more sustainable direction which has huge long term benefits for our community, he a change agent of sustainability that should be celebrated wider.”
Mo said of his nomination: "My nomination for the Proud of Barnsley Green Hero category award has come as a total surprise to me. It is a real honour to be nominated in recognition of my work I have been doing here at Barnsley Hospital and I am proud of our achievements to date.
"I have great support from colleagues across the hospital, the trust’s executive team and our board who fully support our ambitious net zero plans.”