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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Climate-friendly healthcare: reducing the impacts of the healthcare sector on the world's climate
Sustainability Science, Vol.19, pp.1103-1109
2024
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
If the global healthcare sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest carbon emitter, also producing massive volumes of waste. A revolutionary transition to an environmentally sustainable model of healthcare is required. Decarbonisation efforts are initially focused on transitioning to renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency in healthcare facilities (Scopes 1 and 2). One of the major challenges is to reduce the carbon intensity of the broader healthcare sector, especially operational and supply chain-related emissions, which represent 71% of the sector's worldwide emissions (Scope 3). This comment briefly describes the connections between the healthcare sector and climate change and describes several high-impact decarbonisation opportunities, focusing on transitioning from current resource and waste-intensive procurement models and highlighting the planetary co-benefits of fostering low-emissions healthcare. To succeed, this transition will require high-level advocacy and policy changes supported by international collaboration at the global level.
Details
- Title
- Climate-friendly healthcare: reducing the impacts of the healthcare sector on the world's climate
- Authors
- Walter Leal Filho - HAW HamburgJohannes M. Luetz (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and SocietyUrvi D. Thanekar - Deakin UniversityMaria Alzira Pimenta Dinis - Fernando Pessoa UniversityMike Forrester - Deakin University
- Publication details
- Sustainability Science, Vol.19, pp.1103-1109
- Publisher
- Springer Japan KK
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11625-024-01487-5
- ISSN
- 1862-4057; 1862-4065
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- The authors declare that all data supporting this study are available within the paper (data sources that conceptually underpin Table 1 and Fig. 1 have been provided in the respective legends).
- Grant note
- University of the Sunshine Coast International Climate Change Information and Research Programme (ICCIRP), as part of the 100 papers to accelerate climate change mitigation and adaptation initiative
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991016298202621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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