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What Otolaryngologists Can Do to Lessen Their Carbon Footprint

by Amanda E. Dilger, MD, Neelima Tummala, MD, and Natalie A. Krane, MD •

Dr. Dilger is a surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and an instructor in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tummala is an assistant professor of surgery at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Krane is an otolaryngologist specializing in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at The University of Kansas Medical Center.

Healthcare and Greenhouse Gases

“Health Care’s Climate Footprint,” published jointly by Health Care Without Harm, an international nongovernmental organization focusing on sustainability and the worldwide health sector, and Arup, an environmentally focused firm of designers, planners, engineers, architects, consultants, and technical specialists, offers a detailed estimate of healthcare’s global climate footprint. The report contains some startling facts about the impact that worldwide healthcare has on the planet:

  • The global healthcare industry is responsible for 2 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year, or 4.4% of worldwide net emissions—the equivalent of 514 coal-fired power plants. 
  • If the global healthcare sector were a country, it would be the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet. Healthcare’s climate footprint is smaller than that of China, the United States, India, and Russia, but larger than that of Japan and Brazil. 
  • The top three emitters of healthcare greenhouse gas emissions, the United States, China, and the collective countries of the European Union, comprise more than half (56%) of the world’s total healthcare climate footprint.
  • A limited estimate covering 31 countries showed that an additional nearly 1% of healthcare’s global climate footprint—nearly 4 million metric tons of emissions—come from the sector’s use of anesthetic gases and metered dose inhalers. 
  • The gases commonly used for anesthesia (nitrous oxide and the fluorinated gases sevoflurane, isoflurane, and desflurane) are potent greenhouse gases. At present, the majority of these gases enter the atmosphere, contributing at least 0.6% of healthcare’s global climate impact.
  • When viewed across healthcare facilities, purchased electricity, steam, cooling and heating, and supply chain emissions, more than half of healthcare’s footprint is attributable to energy use—primarily the consumption of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply combined with health sector operational emissions. 
  • There’s a strong but not absolute correlation between a country’s healthcare climate footprint and a country’s healthcare spending. Generally, the higher the spending on healthcare, measured as percentage of a country’s gross domestic product, the higher the per capita healthcare emissions come from that country.

There were some data gaps that the report wasn’t able to address given limited time and resources and the nature of the methodology used, but through the recommendations given in the report, the organizations hope to chart the course for zero emissions from healthcare sources by the year 2050. You can read the report in its entirety.

—Amy E. Hamaker