Albert Schweitzer ziekenhuis
Challenge
Neurology C3 started on 31 July 2026. No central kick-off, no mandatory training. Instead, eight captains from the team itself carried the challenges from within: colleagues among colleagues, not a manager imposing something.
The team worked on four topics at once: fewer non-sterile gloves in line with the guideline, fewer disposable underpads, fewer plastic medicine cups, and clearing out digital waste. A deliberately narrow scope, so the programme would not collide with everything else already running on the ward.
The approach
The ward was given a kiosk: a fixed laptop where checking in takes less than ten seconds. That turned out to be the decisive choice. Staff started dropping by during a shift without anyone having to ask. Adoption that grows by itself instead of adoption you have to organise.
The ward was also split into small teams, each with its own name and captain. The standings on the leaderboard drew noticeably more attention than a message about CO₂. In a hospital, comparing yourself to your colleagues' team works better than an abstract climate figure.
Sustainers was physically present throughout: four visits to the ward, weekly contact with the captains and regular alignment with the sustainability manager and the wider team. Not to check up on people, but to keep the energy on the ward alive.
The results
Within two weeks, consumption on the ward dropped by thirty percent. Across the full measurement period, 31 July to 6 September 2026, the team recorded 1,039 gloves not put on, 665 disposable underpads not used and 463 medicine cups saved. Together 2,167 disposable products and 174 kilos of CO₂ avoided. On top of that, the team cleared out 13,041 emails.
Eighty-two percent of the team took an active part in the running challenge. The figures come straight from the Sustainers app: not an estimate, not a survey, but what people logged themselves on the ward.
Perhaps more important than the numbers: the behaviour was picked up and spread by the organisation itself. Other wards asked for it.
What Albert Schweitzer wants to achieve
What worked on Neurology C3 will move through the rest of the hospital in 2027. Three new wards per quarter, twelve by the end of the year. Deliberately that pace, because every ward deserves the same attention and coaching that made the first one succeed.
The next step is already lined up. Albert Schweitzer Hospital uses around two million disposable coffee cups a year, roughly 8,000 kilos of waste. Visible, tangible and recognisable to everyone in the building.
Sustainability is no longer a separate project here. It has become part of what a shift looks like.