Decarbonising Healthcare

Global climate change is impacting food systems, biodiversity, and ecosystems, with major implications for health. It is clear that every sector in the society needs a transformational change to become sustainable and low carbon. The health system is not an exception. The set of activities and health services delivered generate a carbon footprint equivalent to 4-5% of the global carbon emissions. Ultimately, the health system is not only suffering from the consequences of climate change but is also a major contributor to the problem.

There is an international growing movement advocating that the health sector should lead by example and become sustainable and low carbon itself. At BCEPS, PhD Candidate Anand Bhopal engaged with fellow PhD Candidate Emily McLean, MD research track students Sara Eriksen and Leo Larsen, and MD student Sofie Shrivastava to build a coalition of researchers, policy makers, clinicians and leaders working towards reducing the environmental impact of the Norwegian health system.

The main project activities included:

• organising round table discussions with regional and national policy makers, healthcare workers, researchers, and non-governmental organisations
• synthesising the available evidence on carbon emissions from the health sector, interviews with key stakeholders to identify existing work in Norway and best practice case studies from overseas.
• launching a final report attended by the leader of the WHO/COP26 Health Program and featured on Norway’s flagship morning political radio broadcast ‘nyhetsmorgen’

The project was successfully completed in 2021 and links to the final report (in Norwegian) and an English summary can be found below.