2025/07/16 by Viegas, Susana, Haidy Romero de Gante, Chen-Xu, José +2
#Life Sciences #Medicine and Health Sciences #environmental indicators #healthcare institutions #mitigation measures #sustainable healthcare
paper · doi:10.17605/osf.io/wvckb
This research project seeks to address a critical and timely question: How are healthcare institutions working to reduce their environmental impact, and what measurable outcomes are being achieved? In an era of escalating climate change and environmental degradation, healthcare systems worldwide face mounting pressure to reduce their environmental footprint. Although healthcare contributes an estimated 4.4–4.6% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, there remains limited consolidated knowledge about how institutions are attempting to reduce this impact and whether their interventions are effective. While high-level policy frameworks—such as the WHO Global Strategy on Health, Environment and Climate Change, the European Green Deal, and national plans like Portugal’s National Health Plan (2021–2030) and Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality 2050—highlight environmental sustainability as a priority. There is a need to evaluate the actual implementation of these ambitions at the institutional level. This scoping review aims to systematically map existing interventions targeting environmental sustainability in healthcare institutions, and to assess how these actions have influenced key environmental performance indicators.