By Myles Sergeant, Sujane Kandasamy and Linda Varangu
In Canada, about five percent of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from our health care system, which has also been singled out as one of the most polluting health systems per capita across the globe. Health care workers can play a major role in reducing these emissions by integrating low carbon practices into their everyday activities.
Ontario’s health care workforce can get support for taking actions to reduce climate-related emissions from a new initiative. PEACH HEALTH, which stands for Partnerships for Environmental Action by Clinicians and Communities for Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities began six months ago with a group of volunteers starting to reach out to and connect health care environmental champions across Ontario. The essence of this provincial initiative is to engage, encourage, and empower those in the health care sector to take climate action at their work site.
An illustration of what the ideal green hospital might look like is on the website, (www.PeachHealthOntario.com) and helps demonstrate where to take actions, while the Resources section of the website provides examples. The eight categories of resources include Leadership, Education, Supply Chain, Drugs and Devices, Buildings and Energy, Food, Transportation and Natural Systems. The PEACH website serves as a central hub to share information about new initiatives and is also a platform for everyone to share ideas, resources or even collaborate on projects big or small.
Climate champions in Ontario’s health system are showing us what can be done. These champions can be individual leaders or teams with a common goal. They can be smaller projects that lead to larger ones, or system-wide approaches. Any step forward helps build momentum.
Dr. Sanjiv Mathur is an anesthesiologist working at Health Sciences North in Sudbury. Dr. Mathur championed removal of the most potent volatile anesthetic gas, Desflurane, from the hospital formulary, resulting in a reduction of 723 tonnes of GHGs per year.
The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa recently announced their ‘Kick the Carbon’ strategy where approved targets will see CHEO reduce its carbon emissions by five percent each year, totaling 30 per cent by 2025 from a 2019 baseline. This will amount to approximately 2,000 tonnes of emissions saved every year.
The University Health Network’s Toronto Western Hospital and Krembil Discovery Tower will soon be getting 90 per cent of their heating and cooling requirements from the world’s largest raw wastewater energy transfer (WET) system. The WET system will use heat from wastewater flowing through a nearby municipal sewer and significantly reduce the hospital’s usage of electricity and natural gas systems. This system will reduce direct GHGs by approximately 10,000 metric tonnes each year.
At Hamilton Health Sciences, the Smart Commute program offers options to reduce GHG emissions related to travel. Active transportation is supported by providing secure and weather-protected bike racks, lockers, and advocating for better bike lane connections to the hospital.
Clinicians and other health care workers can take action to reduce GHG emissions now and here are some ideas on how to get started:
- Advocate for putting climate change and sustainability into your facility strategic plan.
- Identify like-minded climate change and sustainability champions at your facility to build momentum.
- Work with or create a ‘green’ or ‘sustainability’ team and/or become a champion of a specific initiative.
- Integrate climate change and sustainability actions into everyday practices and agendas. Check out the PEACH website to see what others are doing!
We believe that health care workers must be actively involved, if we are going to make our hospitals greener. And PEACH HEALTH is here to help. Visit their website at www.PeachHealthOntario.com or email us at PEACH peachforhealth@gmail.com
to find out more and get connected.
This article was submitted by The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care.