The Health Care Climate Challenge has over 350 participants, representing the interests of more than 26,000 hospitals and health centers in 43 countries.
"As the only sector with healing as its mission, health care has an opportunity to use its ethical, economic, and political influence to be a leader in climate solutions"
It's easy to get started
1) Join the challenge.
Hospitals, health systems, and health care facilities are invited to sign the Health Care Climate Challenge pledge.
2) Access our resources
Health Care Climate Challenge provides participants with easy-to-use resources to help support climate-smart solutions.
3) Report your progress
We make it easy to record and report your data to track your progress.
1) Sign the pledge
The Health Care Climate Pledge
We pledge to do our part to meet the challenge posed by climate change – a test perhaps as great as human civilization has ever known – by taking the following steps:
- Reduce our own climate footprint: Our collective vision is to reduce our health care systems’ emissions, moving toward low-carbon, and ultimately, carbon-neutral health care. Many hospitals are major energy consumers and can make large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Other hospitals and health systems are energy-starved and can deploy renewable energy to foster greater access to health care and better health outcomes. We pledge to lead the way toward low-carbon health care by setting greenhouse gas reduction targets. We will work to implement energy efficiency measures and, when feasible, deploy clean renewable energy to power our buildings. We will measure and report on our progress, including financial savings related to these actions. We will also seek to identify our institutions’ other climate impacts, including transportation systems, use of anesthetic gases, purchasing policies, waste generation, and disposal. We will develop and implement plans to reduce these impacts as well.
- Prepare for climate impacts: In order to serve our communities, hospitals and health centers need to remain operational during and after an extreme weather event. We need to understand, anticipate, and be equipped to manage the health needs of our immediate community and prepare for shifting disease patterns. We pledge to prepare for the impacts of climate change by becoming more resilient to increasing incidents of extreme weather. We will work to implement a series of measures to assure our physical infrastructure, staff, and communities are prepared for the immediate impact of extreme weather events and the longer-term impacts of changing patterns of disease, as well as other climate impacts, combining these efforts with low-carbon solutions when possible.
- Lead the way to a low-carbon future: As health care providers respected by local communities, government and business, we commit to provide leadership in our societies for a healthy climate. We pledge to do so by educating health care professionals and hospital staff, as well as the communities we serve, on challenges and solutions related to climate and health. We also pledge to encourage public policy, economic development, and investment strategies that move our societies away from fossil fuel dependency and foster instead a healthy energy future, thereby protecting local and global health from fossil fuel combustion and climate change.
By moving toward climate-smart, low-carbon health systems, health care can mitigate its own climate impact, save money, and lead by example. By becoming more resilient, health care can help prepare for the growing impacts of climate change. And by providing societal leadership, we can help forge a vision of a future with healthy hospitals and healthy people living on a healthy planet.
2) Access our resources
After enrolling, the Health Care Climate Challenge provides participants with easy-to-use resources to help support climate-smart solutions.
3) Report your progress
For Practice Greenhealth members who participate in the Environmental Excellence Awards program, data can be automatically uploaded from the Climate page. Health systems that do not submit 60% or more of their facilities and hospitals that do not submit through awards will be asked to submit data in the Hippocrates data system or using an offline form.
Working on reducing a hospital or health system’s climate impact doesn’t happen in a silo. This is why our most successful, leading health systems are part of the Practice Greenhealth network, where they learn about and share various strategies for mitigation, resilience, and leadership.