Greener, Leaner, Cleaner: Healthcare’s Role in Global Warming
The healthcare sector faces a significant challenge in addressing its environmental impact while providing quality care to patients. At a recent conference, experts from across the healthcare industry gathered to discuss the current state of sustainability efforts and explore ways to create a greener, more efficient healthcare system.
The Scale of the Problem
As Stefanie Kneer, the session moderator, pointed out, “The healthcare sector generates twice the emissions of other really big polluting industries such as aviation.” This sobering statistic highlights the urgent need for action within the industry.
Rowland Illing, Chief Medical Officer at Amazon Web Services, provided further context: “Healthcare accounts for 4.4% of global emissions and this is a really large impact. Globally, in the UK, it’s 4% of global emissions and it’s also 3.5% of all road transport.” This includes not just the delivery of healthcare itself but also patients travelling to and from hospitals.
The Challenge of Change
While growing awareness of sustainability issues in healthcare is growing, translating that awareness into action remains difficult. Robert Metzke, who leads global sustainability efforts at Philips, noted: “Close to 90% of healthcare leaders in the world say that climate change and sustainability are important topics for healthcare providers, and we should do something about it. But at the same time we see that still a minority is actually putting them into practice.”
Metzke highlighted some of the obstacles: “A lot of hospitals are committed to becoming carbon neutral. But at the same time, they are struggling to understand what their footprint is, how to measure it, how to organize it.” He emphasised the need to integrate sustainability into core clinical workflows rather than treating it as a separate initiative.
Paths to Progress
Despite the challenges, the speakers outlined several promising approaches to improving healthcare sustainability:
- Cloud Computing
Illing emphasised the potential of cloud computing to reduce the carbon footprint of healthcare IT infrastructure dramatically. “Moving to cloud infrastructure can reduce the carbon footprint of an organisation by up to 88%,” he stated. This is due to the much higher utilisation rates of computer chips in cloud data centres compared to on-premises facilities.
2. Renewable Energy
Several speakers highlighted commitments to renewable energy. Illing noted that Amazon Web Services already powers all its European data centres with renewable energy and aims to be fully renewable globally by 2025.
3. Supply Chain Optimization
Metzke discussed Philips’ efforts to engage its suppliers in sustainability initiatives: “We reached out to our suppliers 3–4 years ago, we said we’re gonna be fantastic if we can get half of our tier 1 supply chain to commit to science-based targets.” He reported that they’ve already achieved over 40% commitment, reducing emissions throughout the supply chain.
4. Smart Buildings
Hospitals consume significantly more energy than other public buildings. Illing described how IoT sensors and AI are being used to optimise building systems: “There’s a couple of areas, and they’ve done an AI engine called brainbox.ai out of Canada, and they’re able to reduce the carbon cost of buildings by around 40% by selectively adjusting air conditioning throughout the building to maintain air quality, reduce costs, and energy expenditure.”
5. Telehealth
Remote healthcare delivery can significantly reduce emissions from patient travel. Illing cited a study showing that over an eight-year period, the use of telemedicine by UK trusts “reduced patient transport by 124 million kilometres.”
6. Innovative Medical Technologies
Metzke described how rethinking medical equipment can yield both clinical and environmental benefits. He gave the example of a new MRI system Philips developed that uses dramatically less helium: “We have developed a sealed magnet system that just runs on seven litres of helium throughout the lifecycle.” This reduces resource consumption and allows for more flexible equipment placement within hospitals.
Balancing Priorities
A key theme of the discussion was the perceived tension between sustainability and healthcare quality. However, the speakers argued that these goals are often aligned rather than in conflict.
Aline Gomez-Acebo, from the Spanish health insurer DKV, stated: “When you become more sustainable, you’re giving different access, you’re having lighter or different devices that can actually provide for without needing to invest in large infrastructure, and you’re enabling the people to actually have the healthcare they need.”
Illing added that governments are increasingly focused on population health and wellness, which inherently connects to environmental factors: “The social determinants of health often outweigh the clinical determinants. If populations can be maintained in well, better states, including environmental conditions, I think that should have an overall benefit to the population and therefore an overall long-term reduction in cost.”
Recommendations for Action
The speakers offered several recommendations for healthcare organisations looking to improve their sustainability:
- Take a patient-centric approach. Metzke advised: “We need to move from a technology focus to be more patient-focused, and really optimize the patient pathway and say okay, what effort, what environmental effort is needed to keep the population healthy?”
- Leverage purchasing power. Metzke noted that healthcare providers can drive change through their procurement policies: “If healthcare providers specify — 70% of their carbon footprint is outside their walls — they say we want to purchase more sustainable equipment, that we want to organise care most sustainably, they can get there, but they need to agree on what that means and what they want.”
- Build capabilities. Metzke suggested that governments could play a role “by for instance, appointing national sustainable healthcare advisors that develop programmes that help this transition in hospitals.”
- Refocus on core mission. Gomez-Acebo highlighted the need to reduce the administrative burden on healthcare providers: “Two-thirds of the time the doctor spends on documentation, administration, and computer tasks. So imagine that inefficiency… Going back to the patient is a good way to address sustainability in healthcare.”
- Embrace cloud computing. Illing emphasised the sustainability benefits of cloud infrastructure: “We want to democratise access to the most secure, the most scalable, and the greenest cloud infrastructure globally.”
The Path Forward
While the healthcare sector faces significant challenges in reducing its environmental impact, the speakers conveyed optimism about the potential for positive change. By embracing innovative technologies, rethinking processes, and keeping patient care at the centre, healthcare organisations can work towards a more sustainable future.
As Metzke concluded: “I think there’s a lot of optimism around technology data, and I think that’s understandable. I think it’s a huge enabler. However, we need to understand that innovation is much more than technology. It is about how it gets delivered, how we organise our care systems, what we pay for, the reimbursement systems.”
By taking a holistic approach that considers both environmental and clinical outcomes, the healthcare sector can play a crucial role in addressing global warming while improving patient care.
