Molly: Hello and welcome back to our series of ‘Meet the Speaker’ where we’ll be interviewing members of our speaker line-up for Care Show London 2026. It’s a chance to get to know the experts behind all the real insights, experience, and guidance that they’ll be presenting at the upcoming show. I’m Molly, and today I’m joined by Hannah Montgomery, one of our amazing speakers for this year’s event. We’re going to be talking about sustainability in social care, why it matters right now, and what attendees can expect to take away from your panel session. 

So, first things first, please go ahead and introduce yourself… 

 

Hannah: Thank you, Molly, and thanks for having me on. I’m Hannah Montgomery, I'm one of the co-founders of Grace Cares, but specifically my remit is ESG; I’m the sustainability lead, so that's where my function is with it. So, Grace Cares, (just as a quick overview for those that haven't heard, but I bet lots of you have must have heard of us) we're a not-for-profit on a mission to make care sustainable. So, we do that by reconditioning pre-loved care equipment that care providers donate us, the NHS and the public, and we sell it at half its original price. And with that profit, we then deliver social value. So, we support older people, we support unpaid caregivers with hardship grants and social activities. We also deliver ESG training to care providers and put on a free quarterly webinar called ‘Caring for Tomorrow’ to help care providers understand what their obligations are in terms of environmental sustainability and the CQC reporting and stuff like that. 

 

Fantastic, thank you! Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got started in the care sector? 

Well, Grace Cares came as a brainchild. So, I've been peripherally in social care for about 20 years now; from when I was a youngster I started. I've worked for a lot of the care technology companies so that was my first start into sustainability in care, was moving away from paper, so that was what I started doing. But health and social care has always been ingrained in me. My dad was a paramedic, and my mum was a probation officer, so I think that ‘we need to help people’ thing was always in me. And I was also working peripherally in social care by delivering care through another charity helping support older people once a month. They were coming to my house for a tea party, and I saw how much care equipment that they needed. I also saw from a friend that has a clearance company that no charities are able to actually sell it because they're not insured and that it was getting broken down and getting put into landfill. And I thought ‘this is complete madness!’: the amount of money that's being wasted, the amount of people that need this support. So, Grace Cares comes from financial pressures you could see, from the care side of things, but also the environmental impact and the people aspect. So that's where this circular economy: ‘why can't we just keep using it and refurbing it?’; that's where Grace Cares kind of came from in the background. 

 

Brilliant! So, to jump straight into it, what’s the focus of your presentation at this year’s conference, and why is this topic so important right now? 

Well, no one wants to see me continually talking so we've got a really awesome panel. Across the research that we're continually doing in ESG, there’s different elements to care, isn't there? […] So, the title is ‘Sustainability that saves money […]’ (because that's what everybody ultimately boils down to) […] ‘real care providers share what actually works’. So instead of the theory and me talking about how you calculate your carbon footprint and what scope 1, 2, 3 emissions are… Let's take it back and let's get some practical things that someone could get from this session and use straight away. We've got a care home segment from Joanne Wilson, MBE, (she won't even tell you she's MBE, she's just kick-ass!) She's a registered manager of a Royal British Legion care home and she's an Outstanding care provider and it's like over a 100-bed care home. The stuff that she's doing across that home in terms of sustainability and ESG is awesome and inspiring so her little segment is going to be awesome.  

We've got Keith Dias, he's the managing director of Apex Healthcare, and he runs a domiciliary care provider in Reading. But his background is also in technology, and he really cares about processes and making tech help care delivery. So sustainable edge, but also the tech side, which is really interesting, especially with my background with social care techs.  

Then we've got Caroline Byram from Voyage Care, so that’s supported living. They're a huge supported living provider and their head office is based in Litchfield, which is where Grace Cares is based so there's a nice tie in there.  

Then, when I often talk about sustainability, it's more of the ‘how do we get the money to even do this?’ Well, I always talk about up-to-date funding streams, and I thought it'd be really interesting to get somebody that's gone through that funding process and actually received it. So [we’ll hear from] Paula Cashmore, she's supporting a care home in Solihull, and has got some funding and is successfully implementing it. I'm actually going across to see the care home with all the new retrofit stuff that they've put in, so we'll be able to understand firsthand what's happened, why and how. No longer can care providers use and dispose; it's going to have to be a circular economy model going forward. So, I think everyone that comes, no matter what segment of care that they're in, will go away with some kind of idea. Even if they're doing loads now, even if they don't even know what ESG is, there should be something for everybody in this session. And there is a free giveaway as well to keep people enticed! So, I won't give too much away, but you should come because points mean prizes… 

That’s what we like to hear! Well, I was going to ask, ‘what's one thing you hope attendees can take away from your session?’ but by the sounds of it, there's quite a few golden nuggets in there that people can expect. Have there been any recent developments or research in care sustainability that you find particularly interesting or exciting? 

There's a change in terms of NHS procurement. So, if you have any contract with the NHS […], by April 2027, you will have to do basic levels of carbon reporting to them. So that could be a contract of any size. So, if that's happening with the NHS, what will then be happening with social care? What will be happening with anybody that you're tendering? I know local authorities at the moment are being devolved so who knows what the landscape is going to look like? So maybe not as quickly as the NHS, but we signed up to the United Nations to say that we were going to be net zero as a major economy by 2050, so it will still be coming. It will be really interesting to see who that affects in social care; having to do mandatory reporting.  

But it's also becoming commercial now. It's not just a narrative. People are measuring and it's being weighed upon and people are then finding the savings. [For example] Coate Water Care are building their 10th home, which is like an eco-home, and they've just bought 20 refurbed hybrid flow mattresses from us. And actually, we've done the carbon footprint analysis and we're seeing how long that will help them. But they are now looking at the commercial elements as well as the carbon footprint, e.g. how many people that's then helped with the money that we've got. It's growing; people are taking it seriously and now it's getting that data so we can prove that a difference is being made. 

It's definitely something I'm hearing across my research as well so it's good to hear. Okay, so what are some misconceptions about sustainability that you often come across and how do you address them? 

Yeah, there's a couple. “It's expensive.” “I've got to get that whatcha-ma-call-it”. “I've got to do this.” It doesn't have to be. It can be compound effect.  

The other thing is “we've got to have done everything yesterday.” No, you don't. Environmental sustainability is not about hugging trees. It's not about planting trees. It's not about greenwashing.  

But a lot of it is just given to one staff member which is another a misconception as well. “Well, who in the staff likes environmental sustainability? Who's interested in it? Let's just give it all to them. Could it even be an add-on job to marketing?” Whereas actually it’s a misconception because instead it's throughout everything. If you look at all the regulations through the CQC, it ties into at least five other regulations anyway. So even just bar the ‘environmental sustainability well-led regulation’ that it is formally coming in as, if you look at some of the other regulations, ESG is involved with that. So, the misconception is, is it should be one person focusing on it. But it should be a whole team effort, and it doesn't have to be expensive.  

It's a big culture change actually that I don't think people understand really. A misconception is how big it is and how important it is and how much of a positive effect that it can have inside the care delivery, but also to the outside community. 

I think a lot of those misconceptions then present the barriers that stop people making those steps. So, if we can break those down, which is hopefully what you guys will be doing, then we've got we've got a plan. 

So obviously, you know your stuff, and you've been in this sector for a while. How do you continue to learn and evolve in what it is that you do? Are there any particular books or mentors or inspirations that you could share with our audience? 

Yeah, I start the mornings trying to put good, positive things into my brain. I think we chatted prior to coming onto this call saying ‘there's so much crazy stuff happening in this world’, so I start with podcasts and audio books. But ones that have a slant on what it’s going to teach me in terms of environmental sustainability or [ones that] might make me think things a little bit differently. There is a book that has really influenced me; ‘Can Marketing Save the Planet?’ It's by Michelle Carville and it just reframes sustainability as a behaviour change and influence. It's not just a policy you write once. It's reiterating that it is about that culture change. It says through each chapter, ‘imagine every time you're having a meeting where you’re asking what the cost of [something] is going to be? How are our staff going to feel? [But most importantly…] ‘How's the planet going to feel about this decision that we're making?’ So, for the CQC, you can evidence that you're always including environmental sustainability within everything, but it's just that change [of mindset]. So that book was really, really good. 

I'm also running the Caring for Tomorrow webinars, and because we do one each quarter, I have to keep up to date with what's happening with the CQ and I have to keep up to date with what care providers are doing and get the most relevant speakers that are going to become part of it. So, it's always evolving, really, it’s more just about making sure you put time in your diary to do it. 

Okay, well as I'm sure people can tell, you're incredibly passionate about this area and I love the energy that you bring. What do you enjoy most about working in sustainability within care? 

That it's evolving and nobody knows all the answers. If you have someone knocking on the door going, “I'm this consultant and I can help your teams do this”, [shakes head] it's evolving all the time so they could be just giving you ‘emperor's new clothes’, it has that risk about it. But it doesn't just factor into one thing, it's financial resilience, which is great for those that are trying to build up a care portfolio and sell it, improve EBITDA and all that. It's environmentally responsible, but it's also got a huge social impact. We're in social care and we're helping people feel better: if our planet is getting poisoned, we're eating the poisoned things and we're breathing in bad air quality, that's going to give us more severe health issues, which is going to put even more pressure on social care. So, it's the full circular economy of everything that affects us and how people feel when they come into work, your staff as well as your residents. So, I enjoy it because it's just always evolving, and it will make such a big impact when you deliver all three (in terms of social impact, environmental impact and financial impact). It's exciting. You can improve lives and systems at the same time and it's really powerful. 

I can imagine it's rewarding to see the change that you started, which is very wholesome. Okay, so a slightly more light-hearted one: I know obviously we've touched on some big things, and the world of care is a bit of a whirlwind right now, so personally, outside of work, how do you unwind? How do you recharge? 

Well, one of my things kind of is tied to work. So, I'm sure you've heard of it, but WAGS, (Women Achieving Greatness in Social Care). We meet up, we share ideas and stuff like that and that actually recharges me when I'm away from work. It's slightly worky stuff, but it's not really, and you're with like-minded people. And that's what I really love about social care. People should get involved with that if they're not, because I find a lot of benefit from that.  

And I've recently started getting into golf, believe it or not. So, my dad's recently has a new hip, and he's actually good at golf, so I'm hoping that with this time off, […] I can catch up and just surprise him. After I've had quite a big day at Grace Cares, we've got a really good driving range right near the unit because we're on a farm. So, I just go there, zone out, hit some balls. I'm not looking at the time. Your head's got to be completely in it; your head can't be elsewhere. And there's something really grounding about that. It brings me back. And as you say, it's outside; I'm in a field while we're doing it. It's nice, but it definitely is teaching me perseverance and patience, which can transfer into any part of your life. 

Well, that was all of my questions today, Hannah. Thank you for answering them so honestly and passionately; we really appreciate it.  

Like Hannah mentioned, the panel session that she'll be running is called ‘Sustainability that saves money: real care providers sharing what actually works’.

That will be on day one of the show (Wednesday 29th of April) in the People and Business Theatre starting at 10.15am. So, if you are coming to Care Show, make sure that you head to the People in Business Theatre at 10.15.  

Anyway, thank you so much, Hannah. Thank you for joining us today, and I hope you're looking forward to Care Show as much as we are. 

I'm really excited! Can't wait to see you there. Get there, everyone! Get your tickets!  

Register here

WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH HERE