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Mitigation-Resilience-Equity diagram

Together our powerful network will transform the health sector — ensuring it can balance the immediate needs for mitigation, resilience, and equity, while serving as a leader in the broader shift to a just, low-carbon economy.

Climate change is humanity’s biggest health threat, and we’re at a tipping point.

The health care sector is responsible for 8.5% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with the U.S. health sector accounting for 25% of global health sector emissions. In reducing their emissions, hospitals protect patients and communities from the health impacts of climate change, reduce health care costs, and improve health equity.

A hospital’s climate and environmental impact is vast, ranging from energy consumed to food procured and served, to single-use plastic and other waste generated, to anesthetic gases, transportation, and so much more. We provide climate-smart strategies and solutions that can improve all areas of health care delivery. Our objective is to transform the health sector to mitigate the climate crisis and its impacts on human health and accelerate the broader transition to a clean energy economy.

Definition: Mitigation

Health care starts by doing no harm, mitigating direct fossil fuel emissions so that the delivery of health care creates no negative health impacts – and evolves to a healing role, building community health and resilience and creating conditions for all communities to thrive.

Our vision for the future

The World Health Organization has identified the climate crisis as humanity's most significant health threat, making climate mitigation a critical global health opportunity. A hospital’s climate and environmental impact is vast, ranging from energy consumed, to food procured and served, to single-use plastic and other waste generated, to anesthetic gases, transportation, and so much more. Without a rapid transformation to a low-carbon society, the health threats of a warmer planet will grow increasingly severe and more numerous, especially for the most vulnerable members of our communities.

Health Care Without Harm provides mitigation strategies and works with health care to develop solutions to reduce impacts in all areas of the hospital. Hospitals can protect patients and communities from the health impacts of climate change, reduce health care costs and improve health equity, and accelerate a societal transition to an equitable low-carbon economy.


Featured initiatives

Climate mitigation

CLIMATE AND HEALTH

Reduce emissions and implement climate-smart health care, driving low-carbon economic transition.

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Place-based partnerships

RESILIENCE

Facilitate deep, trusting partnerships with community-based organizations to build replicable models for collaborative action.

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Climate leadership

CLIMATE AND HEALTH

Act as messengers for the climate-health crisis and advocate for climate-smart policies.

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People and planet-friendly food

HEALTHY FOOD

Discover food service strategies that reduce your climate impact and grow resilient food systems.

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Purchasing sustainable products

SUSTAINABLE PROCUREMENT

Safer toxic-free alternatives are available for nearly every area of health care delivery.

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Selected resources for mitigation

The Path to Carbon Neutral: A Guide to Building a Climate-Smart Health Care System

Co-authored by Health Care Without Harm and Kaiser Permanente, this guide shares lessons learned from Kaiser Permanente’s journey, as well as related…

Safe haven in the storm: Protecting lives and margins with climate-smart health care

This report analyzes billions of dollars in losses and resilience-related savings to demonstrate how preparing for extreme weather can make or break a…

Climate Resilience for Health Care and Communities: Strategies and Case Studies

This paper provides a strategic framework for building climate-resilient health systems, and explores how health care institutions can leverage…

Climate Action: A Playbook for Hospitals 🡥

This playbook captures how hospitals are operationalizing climate solutions – inspiring and encouraging hospitals to engage further in climate action…

Health Care Emissions Impact Calculator 🡥

This calculator is specifically designed to help health care organizations develop a GHG emissions inventory at the facility and/or system level for…

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Toolkit 🡥

This toolkit developed by Practice Greenhealth provides resources to help hospitals and health systems track GHG emissions and set reduction goals.

Transportation Toolkit 🡥

Practice Greenhealth offers members a toolkit to help hospitals and health systems reduce their transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Anesthetic Gas Toolkit 🡥

By focusing on anesthetic gases, anesthesia providers and health care organizations have an opportunity to aid their facility’s GHG reduction goals.


Our other core objectives

Resilience

Ensure health systems are resilient to climate impacts and are actively supporting community climate resilience as anchor institutions

Equity

Lead the health sector in reducing social disparities intersecting with climate mitigation and resilience, and amplify the voices of the most impacted…