Healthcare is a polluting sector with 11 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, according to the Environmental Platform for the Healthcare Sector. That is more than companies such as Tata Steel and Shell combined. However, sustainability is not yet happening very quickly.
Minister Kuipers of Health sent yesterday the evaluation of the Green Deal Sustainable Care to the House of Representatives. A ‘green deal’ is a package of agreements between the government and a sector to make it more sustainable. The results: 260 parties in the healthcare sector have signed a document with which they promise to become more sustainable.
Result
In particular, these care institutions have become more ‘aware’ of the sustainability of care and enthusiasm for improving it. However, according to their own account, the desired concrete sustainability measures have only been successful for some of the organisations. Think of reducing CO2 emissions, reducing the amount of waste, less pollution of surface water by medicine residues and a healthier working and living environment. Only 6 percent of the organizations that started working with it had achieved all the goals. The most frequently mentioned reason that these goals were not achieved was the corona crisis.
Most effective?
Is such a green deal the most effective way of making the healthcare sector a less polluting sector? That’s up to politics. ‘The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport is currently in discussion with parties from the healthcare sector about the next phase of making healthcare more sustainable, after the current Green Deal’, Ernst Kuipers writes in an accompanying letter to the House.
Young caregivers in action
For a number of young caregivers, this is not happening fast enough. They sound the alarm in a letter to ministers and they have drawn up a petition. Healthcare is not judged on how sustainable it is, according to the young care providers. There are no clear and binding climate targets from the government. This was also a point of criticism from the evaluation report on the Green Deal Sustainable Care.
Six months ago, 200 major medical journals still called for sustainability. The World Health Organization calls the climate crisis, environmental pollution and biodiversity loss the greatest threat to humanity.
Knowing more? In Plus Magazine of March 2022 there is an article about sustainable care: ‘Choosing sustainable care’, on pages 94-98.
Also read: ‘Green care on the rise’, about green initiatives in care.
