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Eric Lerner, US Climate Director, Health Care Without Harm
During the recent COP21 climate negotiations in Paris, France, Dignity Health announced it is divesting from thermal coal companies, expanding sustainable investments, increasing its use of renewable energy, and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Read more about this moral leadership action.
This announcement stands as one of the most significant moments in the climate and health movement this year. Every health system and clinician that is concerned about the health impacts of climate change should take notice. Here’s why:… Read More
Type: Press
2022 is the year we accelerate the decarbonization of health care. And CleanMed 2022 offers the strategies we need for moving from commitment to action to impact. Join us May 10-12 in Kansas City, where an incredible lineup of expert speakers will share the many ways you can drive climate solutions within your organization.
Attendees of CleanMed will experience cutting-edge sessions on:
Insights from Biden administration officials on their work to build a low-carbon, more resilient, and more equitable health care system and how leading health systems are modeling climate action.
How… Read More
Type: Press
Hospitals have significant buying power as they are often one of the community’s largest consumers. By purchasing food and beverages that have earned trusted third-party certifications for quality and sustainable practices, hospitals can shift the entire food system toward sustainability, without significant cost increases to total food service spending. In many cases, this can be done through collaborative efforts with the health care supply chain and vendors, via tactics including:
Using purchase power to move away from detrimental food production practices like the overuse of antibiotics… Read More
Type: Basic page
Health care facilities are increasingly at risk from climate disruption and are struggling to adapt. Fortunately, funding is readily available to build infrastructure resilience – if hospitals take action now to access it.
Boston Medical Center, an essential hospital and partner facility that has made sustainability and resilience a centerpiece of its mission, shows what accessing this funding can accomplish. Since 2011, BMC’s facility in Boston’s South End has lowered its energy use by about 35% and reduced carbon emissions from energy consumption by over 90%. BMC’s initiatives reduced the… Read More
Type: Press
Hospitals care for and heal patients and also protect and promote community health. Sharing information about the risks and health impacts of our changing climate, with an emphasis on a hospital’s plans to address these challenges, is integral to a hospital’s healing mission and can provide the foundation for community-wide sustainability and resiliency efforts.
Gundersen Health System achieved energy independence in 2014 with renewable energy sourced from its community. Gundersen’s former CEO Dr. Jeff Thompson explained, “Our board saw the need to make an investment to take care of our… Read More
Type: Basic page
(Sustainable procurement guide) One of the greatest challenges we face today is embedding sustainability and justice into the things we buy. For generations, our march toward an increasingly globalized economy has come at the expense of our health, social justice, and the environment. For just as long, those costs have remained hidden, the harm externalized.
The COVID-19 crisis exposed the fragility and vulnerability of our global supply chains. Yet it also has given us an opportunity to move toward localized supply chains that not only reduce environmental harm, but also provide business… Read More
Type: Resources
An academic medical center is a tertiary care hospital that is organizationally and administratively integrated with a medical school. The hospital is the principal site for the education of both medical students and postgraduate medical trainees. Often situated on or near a college or university campus, working together with the host institution and campus may be complicated. Now more than ever, medical and nursing students recognize climate change as an urgent threat to health and social justice.
Launched in 2023, the Climate Action and Sustainability in Academic Medicine Community forum… Read More
Type: Basic page
The health sector cannot achieve net zero emissions without reducing the carbon footprint of its existing facilities. But how can we do that?A new, groundbreaking analysis by the American Society for Health Care Engineering (AHSE) and Providence St. Peter Hospital establishes the technical and financial feasibility of electrifying the existing hospital building’s thermal load. Join the study authors in an overview of energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with hospital building operations and learn from a case study focusing on the technologies implemented, costs incurred, and the… Read More
Type: Event
Scientific consensus shows climate change is already damaging human health and health care delivery and will have a greater impact in the future. Health care is at the front line of climate change, bearing the costs of increased diseases and more frequent extreme weather events.
Hospitals and health systems are addressing health threats posed by climate change and air pollution, in alignment with their missions to heal. Many are doing so by implementing business-smart initiatives that also protect their communities from climate change by:
Reducing the carbon footprint of hospital… Read More
Type: Basic page
Health care’s contributions to climate change also contribute to many of the diseases we care for, which stands in contrast to a hospital’s healing mission and commitment to “do no harm.” The U.S. health care sector’s greenhouse emissions make up 8.5% of the U.S. total, and American health care facilities emit more greenhouse gas than the entire United Kingdom.
It is imperative that health systems set a net-zero goal for no later than 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5° C and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.
Kaiser Permanente’s 2025 goals “raise the bar on… Read More
Type: Basic page
Join Practice Greenhealth
Practice Greenhealth is the health care sector’s go-to source for information, tools, data, resources, and expert technical support on sustainability initiatives that help hospitals and health systems meet their health, financial, and community goals.
Who We Are
Practice Greenhealth is the leading sustainable health care organization, delivering environmental solutions to more than 1,500 hospitals and health systems in the United States and Canada. Partnership opportunities include hospitals, health systems, community health organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, government, academic institutions, and the health care value chain.