More Needs to be Done to Prioritize Climate Change
- Abstract
Climate change is a critical public health issue — one that hospitals need to do more to address. Every year, U.S. hospitals are emitting 8 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases, generating more than 5.9 million tons of waste annually, and spending more than $6.5 billion on energy costs. While many hospitals are beginning to adopt more climate-friendly policies, including changing supply chains to obtain greener products, increasing water conservation efforts, or reducing toxic and hazardous waste, we still must do more to reduce our collective environmental footprint.If we commit to making the necessary changes, we will not only improve the overall health of our staff, patients, and communities — we can also save an estimated $15 billion over the next decade.
- Resource Type
- Blog Post
- Author
- Lloyd Dean
- Resource URL
- http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2016/02/25/more-needs-to-be-done-to-prioritize-climate-change/
- Date
- February 25, 2016
- Organization Type
- Academic
- Health and Human Impact
- Overview/general
- Climate and Environmental Impact
- Overview/general
- Emission Source
- Healthcare
- Solutions
- Climate mitigation/GHG reduction Public health/health sector response