In its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission accounting, the NHS follows the “ GHG Protocol Corporate Standard” – a standardised framework developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). As the largest single employer in Europe and the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world, the NHS can use its size and influence to drive its own emissions reductions, while paving the way for other health systems to follow suit. The benefits of this commitment will hopefully spill over to other healthcare systems. In 2020, a year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the NHS announced its commitment to become the world’s first net-zero national health system by 2045. However, the National Health Service (NHS) in England holds the only such effort carried out by the health system itself, which it has been developing and refining since 2008. To this end, carbon footprints have been published for healthcare systems in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Japan, and the US – alongside international estimates. For example, healthcare in the world’s largest economies currently accounts for 4.4% of global CO2 emissions.Īny effort to reduce the footprint of health systems must be underpinned by a thorough understanding of emission sources and the activities that drive them. This extends to reducing its carbon footprint. With its responsibility for safeguarding the public, the health community has a prominent role at the forefront of climate change mitigation efforts – promoting its health co-benefits and building resilience to face future increases in healthcare demand. However, with the NHS aiming to reach net-zero emissions in 2045, there is still some way to go. And the emissions per patient have fallen by almost two-thirds. While this is sizeable, total emissions have dropped by approximately a quarter since 1990. This is around 7% of the UK’s total carbon footprint for that year. Unpacking where these CO2 emissions are coming from, we calculate a total for 2019 of around 25m tonnes of CO2 equivalent. In our recent study, published in the Lancet Planetary Health, we estimate the carbon footprint of the National Health Service (NHS) in England. That means accelerating mitigation efforts in the healthcare sector is essential to help ensure health is protected in a warming world. In 2017, the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change warned that the impact of climate change on human health is now so severe that it should be considered “ the major threat of the 21st century”.īut while health services around the world will face the challenge of dealing with these impacts, the industry itself is responsible for a significant portion of the CO2 being added to the atmosphere each year.
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