A snapshot of sustainability and decarbonisation activities in Australian healthcare

DR KRISTA VERLIS Program Manager and Research Officer, Wiser HealthCare

ADJ APROF REBECCA HADDOCK Executive Director of Knowledge Exchange, AHHA, Co-Lead Investigator, HEAL

PROF ALEXANDRA BARRATTProfessor of Public Health, University of Sydney, Co-Lead Investigator, HEAL

Climate change is a significant threat to the health of both humanity and the environment, with healthcare being a notable contributor to climate change. Globally, healthcare accounts for around 4-5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and in Australia, around 7% of carbon emissions.1 Clinical care accounts for the biggest portion of healthcare carbon emissions.2 While action is occurring within the healthcare sector to address its carbon footprint, and 80 countries, including Australia, now committed to sustainable, low-carbon health systems through the Alliance for Action on Climate Change and Health (ATACH) Programme,3 it is not well known exactly what actions were being undertaken in this sustainability space in Australia.

Therefore, to improve our understanding of what sustainability and decarbonisation actions were occurring within the Australian healthcare system, we mapped activity across Australia,4 including identifying the various healthcare stakeholders and carrying out an extensive search to locate relevant documents; including position statements, policy documents, frameworks, strategies, reports, and action plans. Key content data regarding sustainability and/or decarbonisation was then extracted with attention to specific actions in clinical care or in the broader healthcare system.