New report highlights wins — and opportunities — for climate action and sustainability in health care

Health organizations across the Toronto Academic Health Science Network (TAHSN) are taking action to improve sustainability in health care — and better prepare for the health impacts of climate change.

Canada’s health-care system is responsible for 4.6 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. Simultaneously, climate change is driving harmful environmental conditions, like wildfires and extreme heat, that can make people sicker and increase the burden on the health-care system. Hospital and health-care organizations are also vulnerable to climate issues, such as floods, and aren’t necessarily prepared to handle these increasingly common climate risks while still serving their community.

“Healthcare is a surprisingly resource-intensive and polluting sector, contributing to climate change and ecological decline, and negatively impacting health and health equity,” says Fiona Miller, director of the Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health and Sustainable Care — a partnership that includes the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and which is based at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

“At the same time, healthcare is highly vulnerable to climate shocks and stresses. Health institutions must increasingly respond to these challenges with ambitious climate and sustainability action.”

To pinpoint sustainability goals shared among TAHSN institutions and track progress, Miller and the centre’s managing director Brittany Maguire co-developed a sustainability balanced scorecard with TAHSN’s Sustainable Health System Community of Practice.

A new report, authored by Maguire and Miller, reveals that this initiative, led by the Collaborative Centre, is already helping health organizations build towards a brighter, more sustainable future.

The scorecard evaluates organizations across four categories: leading, caring, building and shaping. Within these categories are specifics like whether organizations have dedicated teams to lead sustainability efforts, and initiatives to reduce the environmental impact of supplies used, procurement processes, and waste and GHG emissions produced.

The report highlights how many organizations have met these goals as well as successful initiatives across these categories. The results offer a way of measuring where hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area are at in terms of sustainability efforts, and what still needs to be done. For instance, nearly all the participating organizations have established cross-functional teams to lead sustainability efforts, and more than half prioritize sustainability in organizational strategy and leadership.

Several hospitals have taken steps to tailor food services to patients’ dietary restrictions and preferences to reduce food waste and offer more plant-based menu options. Michael Garron Hospital, Scarborough Health Network and Holland Bloorview tested an initiative to cut back on unnecessary glove use. And most of the participating organizations are developing plans to reduce their GHG emissions.

“This report both celebrates progress and encourages ambition within the TAHSN network and beyond by sharing successes and highlighting opportunities for further climate and sustainability action,” says Maguire. “This gives us tangible steps to make healthcare more sustainable — and real-world examples showing that change is possible.”