Hospitals Confront Their Climate Achilles Heel: Supply Chains
Cleaning chemicals, drugs and other goods that hospitals buy account for most of the greenhouse-gas emissions from US health care.
Medical supplies sit on a counter in an exam room at Perry Memorial Hospital in Princeton, Illinois.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergThe health-care industry accounts for 8.5% of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, almost as much as agriculture. So the Biden administration is pushing hospital systems to do more to combat climate change: The US Department of Health and Human Services has asked hospitals, health suppliers, drug companies and others in the industry to pledge to reduce their GHG emissions to net zero by 2050, inventory their supply chain emissions and develop a climate resilience plan for their facilities.
Some hospitals have already taken carbon-cutting steps like installing on-site solar power, purchasing renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency in their buildings. But the vast majority of emissions in the sector — 80% — come from the medical supply chain. These are difficult for hospitals to address because they’re not under their direct control.