Minimally invasive surgical or MIS techniques have redefined surgery procedures in the healthcare sector. But these epoch-making inventions come with a high price. The rapid popularization of such methods has increased carbon emissions worldwide. The healthcare industry contributes 4% to the world’s carbon emissions.

Modern operations techniques like Laparoscopic approaches and robot-assisted surgeries are partly responsible. It has been proved that these modernizations have increased GHG emissions by 43.5% and waste production by 24%.

With the dramatic rise in the emission of Carbon, hospitals have turned their focus on adapting sustainability practices to inhibit any further escalation. Read along to know the common approaches they have imbibed to achieve the reduction of carbon emissions.

Nine Ways Hospitals Can Deal With Reducing Carbon Emissions

Cutting down the percentage of carbon emissions has become extremely vital for the healthcare sector. This has led major metropolitan cities to undertake certain initiatives to reduce carbon discharge gradually.

For instance, to reduce carbon emissions in NYC, they began the NYC Carbon Challenge 2007 with a vision to reduce the cumulative discharge of Carbon from hospitals, commercial offices, and hotels by at least 33% by 2030. Similarly, a few techniques and tools are listed below that hospitals can utilize.

Switching To Renewable Energy

Most hospital buildings use up a lot of energy and result in a huge amount of GHG discharge. Results prove it is 2.5 times more than other commercial buildings. If the health sector can shift to utilizing renewable energies, the percentage will come down to quite an extent. 

Hospitals can achieve this, and collaborating with relevant companies can be helpful. For instance, Philips, via consortium-led power purchase agreements, has been carbon-neutral in its operations right from 2020. 

Make Use Of Sustainable Equipment

Hospital resources are the largest source of “embedded carbon” in the entire healthcare industry. Beginning from extracting, manufacturing, and supplying these materials contribute to almost 40-50% of emissions. Hospitals can opt for sustainable equipment to achieve a low-carbon or carbon-free workflow. 

For instance, Helium is paramount in providing the long-term availability of MR Diagnostics. However, due to the limited presence of this noble gas, Philips has implemented the eco-design principles to structure a fully sealed magnet, which results in a considerable reduction of emissions. 

The company has launched its Eco-designing imaging equipment to achieve energy efficiency in its products. Opting for these products will ensure the increase of sustainability in the sector.

Opt For Telemedicine 

One of the latest technologies that hospitals can choose is familiarizing themselves with telemedicine. This approach reduces around 0.70–372 kg CO2 discharge for every consultation trip. If applied to a larger framework and considering the number of visits daily, the percentage will amount to a considerable one. 

Moreover, this approach is beneficial to the patient and doctor alike. Patients will not have to spend hours in lengthy queues, and the hospital will have less footfall. This will benefit critical patients and reduce the stress on the hospital staff. 

Optimize Your Supply Chain 

Supplying supplies (termed Scope 3) contributes directly to carbon emissions by almost 71%, so an end-to-end view to ensure supply chain transparency is important. Several practices include:

• Encouraging reusable or nature-friendly supply packaging.
• Lessening the use of disposable products.
• Promoting the utilization of reusable ones.

Hospitals can commit to only opt for materials that are nature-friendly and recyclable. 

Also, to ensure transparency, they can ask for the supplier’s manufacturing, packaging, transportation, etc., data. These disclosures have revealed a lot of loopholes and forced manufacturers to shift to sustain in the industry. 

Choose to recycle and reuse

Hospital waste amounts to huge numbers and becomes the breeding ground for CO2 emission. However, they can adapt to circular approaches to reduce the waste produced. For instance, they make compost from yards and reuse resources like the US’s reusable anesthetic equipment. 

Also, opting for refurbished equipment will contribute to the initiative. Philips’  Circular Edition system provides their collaborated peers with refurbished products to reduce emissions. However, they are quality-tested. Hence, they assure the best service.

Try To Become More Tech-Savvy

If you give it proper thought, you will realize health sectors can become more technology-based. This will reward them with more efficient results, such as choosing software-based or cloud solutions over on-site enterprise hardware. This dematerialization will be of incredible help in the reduction. 

For instance, Amazon’s cloud offerings contribute to its sustainability approach. In large centralized data centers, 90% of electricity is attributed to renewable energy sources. Similarly, hospitals can replace on-site infrastructure with centralized cloud-based data centers.  

Educate The Hospital Staff

Dealing with carbon discharges to promote environmental well-being is a cumulative effort where the entire hospital community must unite. Many employees unknowingly contribute to carbon emissions. 

Hence, it is necessary to arrange teaching sessions to provide them with a comprehensive guide on the various ways to reduce carbon emissions. The change will only be noticeable when the efforts are significant enough. 

Stop The Wastage Of Resources

Overuse and misuse of resources in hospitals are still quite prevalent. Prescribing unnecessary antibiotics, steroids, overdiagnosis, overusing supplemental oxygen, etc., are common practices that contribute to carbon discharge. 

Also, reducing the use of plastic gloves should be encouraged. Maintaining the equipment is encouraged to lessen purchasing new equipment.

Others

There are a few other manners to achieve carbon emission reductions, like 

• Clearly state your environmental standards. Your contract should speak clearly of your adapting to sustainability practices. These include waste reduction, energy efficiency, reusability, and longevity of products. It will compel your suppliers to meet those standards. Also, you can make a call if the said requirements still need to be met. 
• Before selecting your supplier, ensure they are serious about the sustainability approach. Conduct thorough research on their background to check. Examine their environmental policies, certifications, operation details, and other relevant practices. You will get a better understanding of their workflow. This will ensure a low carbon emission supply chain. 
• You can opt for on-site visits to supervise their functioning with healthcare products. This will help you ensure their claims and verify their commitments to the sustainability approaches. 
• Try opting for local and regional suppliers if the quality desirability is matched. Considering such suppliers will help in minimizing the carbon emissions associated with transportation. 
• Connect your suppliers to CDP to check the percentage of eco-friendliness. After a thorough examination, this organization will give you the necessary insights and scopes for improvement. 
• To encourage suppliers to imbibe sustainability in their workflow, provide incentives, improve payment terms, make future promises, etc. This will help ensure the low-carbon or carbon-free operational flow lasts longer. 

Final Thoughts 

Healthcare sectors can improve when their collaborators and associates come together to achieve the purpose. Here, the basic question arises: how can companies reduce carbon emissions to help health sectors improve their sustainability? Well, they can choose to manufacture products that don’t need frequent changes. Also, they can use quality-tested refurbished products.