If the health sector were a country, it would rank fifth in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. It accounts for 4.9% of total global emissions, the equivalent of 514 coal-fired power plants. The data, which does not take into account the carbon footprint of the pharmaceutical industry, is slightly lower in the case of Spanish health centers, which are responsible for 4.5% of the country's total emissions.
It can be affirmed that caring for people's health harms the climatic health of the planet. However, the toilet is both the victim and the culprit: environmental pollution and the climate crisis cause 1.4 million premature deaths in Europe every year, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) at the 7th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, held at the beginning of July in Budapest (Hungary). In the summer of 2022 alone, 61,000 people died due to heat in the Old Continent (11,000 in Spain), according to research by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).
"71% of the emissions are the responsibility of the supply chain, production, transport and the provision of services, such as, for example, pharmaceutical products, food or medical devices; 12% comes from purchased energy (electricity and fuel for cooling); and 17% are direct emissions from health centers", specifies Maria Emília Gil, technical director of the Fundació Unió, of the Association of Health and Social Entities.
“Within a city, health centers are the buildings that consume the most energy and, especially, hospitals, because they are in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with an intensive use of health technology and with a continuous influx of people ”, points out Jaume Duran, general director of the Mollet University Hospital, one of the Catalan centers of reference in hospital sustainability. Duran points out another interesting fact: "A sick person, for each day of admission, generates seven kilos of solid waste."
"Until now, the health sector has not been a priority sector in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but the regulatory framework and aid from European funds are encouraging 80% of organizations to implement energy efficiency measures and that 67% are incorporating renewable energies. In addition, there are also initiatives to reduce plastics and other single-use materials”, says Maria Emília Gil. "There is not a hospital that is not doing anything in this line because in the end it is a source of savings, with reductions in electricity spending of 13% on average per year," says Jaume Duran.
A year ago, the WHO presented the Alliance for Transformative Action in Climate and Health, which establishes seven high-impact actions that can be carried out from the health sector: use of electricity from renewable sources; promotion of energy efficiency in buildings: promotion of the use of public transport and low-emission vehicles; provide healthy, seasonal, zero-waste and sustainably produced local food; reduction of the unnecessary use of medicines and encourage the production of medicines that are more respectful with the environment; reduce the generation of waste, and improve the efficiency of the system as a whole.
