Is Your Green Strategy Ready for CQC Scrutiny?

How we took the first steps toward sustainability and what we learned.

At Eden Country Care, a rural home care provider based in Cumbria, we’ve always focused on doing the right thing for our clients and community. But when we set out to improve our digital presence last year, we didn’t expect it would also lead us to take action on our carbon footprint and help develop a new tool that could benefit the whole sector.

As part of a wider effort to reflect on our business and communicate more clearly with the public, we began looking at how our service operates on a daily basis. One area stood out immediately: the travel patterns of our care team, who support clients across some of the most remote parts of Cumbria. We already knew staff mileage was likely to be our biggest source of emissions. But without accurate data, we had no clear starting point and no way to identify practical ways to reduce it.

That’s when we connected with a not-for-profit initiative called See Through Carbon, which was looking for real-world data to test a new, open-access carbon reporting system for small organisations. We offered to take part in the pilot, not as sustainability experts, but as a busy care provider wanting to better understand our impact.

What we learned by measuring our carbon footprint

With support from See Through Carbon’s volunteers, we submitted a few key data points: our electricity use, the supplies we purchase, and most importantly, how far our staff travel each day. For a team of around 100 people, the process took just a few hours.

The results confirmed what we’d suspected: staff mileage made up over 93% of our total emissions. But it wasn’t just about the numbers; it was about having clarity. Seeing everything broken down gave us a concrete place to start.

“It wasn’t about finding a shock,” said my co-director, Dan Tarney.
“It was about getting visibility. Once you see it all laid out, it becomes possible to act.”

Turning data into action

With a clear dashboard in hand, we began identifying small but meaningful ways to cut emissions, many of which also improved efficiency and reduced waste. These included:

• Smarter scheduling to reduce unnecessary mileage
• Exploring electric vehicle options
• Moving more processes online to cut paper use
• Making the office more energy-efficient

Each action was practical, affordable, and linked to a clear carbon saving. That meant we could prioritise what mattered most and begin tracking our progress over time.

Why it matters

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly relevant part of CQC’s Well-Led assessments. Commissioners and regulators are starting to ask how providers are managing their environmental impact. And with the care sector under constant pressure, it's easy to feel like sustainability is a luxury or a distraction.

But our experience showed the opposite. Once we had the data, making changes became straightforward and often beneficial in other ways too. It helped us identify inefficiencies, reduce costs, and build trust with staff, clients, and families.

We also believe it’s important to show that small, rural providers can take action without huge budgets or external consultants. We didn’t need to be experts; we just needed the right information and a willingness to get started.

An approach that reflects how care really works

The system we used was specifically designed to reflect how care is delivered in the real world, mobile, personalised, and often spread across rural areas. There was no software to buy, no subscription, and no sales pitch. Just support, data, and a team committed to helping care providers like us.

We’re now continuing to work with See Through Carbon as they improve their dashboard and open it up to more providers. As more of us take part, there’s potential not just for individual improvements but for collective change across the sector, especially in advocating for better infrastructure, smarter travel support, and realistic, sustainable policy.

Taking the first step

You don’t need a perfect plan, just a willingness to understand your impact and take small, meaningful steps.

At Eden Country Care, starting with the basics gave us clarity, direction, and confidence to act. And that’s often what matters most to inspectors: not perfection, but visible progress.

If you're curious about where your carbon footprint comes from and how to reduce it in a way that fits the realities of home care, the pilot is still open to new providers.

Find out more at www.seethroughcarbon.org