By Jenna Hughes
How the healthcare industry is responding to the push to go green.
Editor’s note: The following is the first in a three-part series on sustainability.
Integrating sustainable practices has been a recent focus for many healthcare organizations, driven by the need to balance quality patient care with environmental leadership.
The healthcare industry – encompassing medical services, manufacturing and distribution, medical waste disposal and more – has a substantial environmental footprint compared to other sectors. In fact, healthcare accounts for roughly 8.5% of U.S. net greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), which is roughly 4.4% of global net emissions, according to the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) study, “Emissions Disclosures and Energy Use Reporting by Hospitals in the United States.”
Hospital care makes up the greatest portion of the health sector’s GHG emissions at 35%, per the American Hospital Association (AHA). There were 6,120 total hospitals nationwide as of 2022.
“Frame these statistics another way: if the health sector were a country, it would rank as the fifth-largest emitter on earth,” said Gwyneth Jones, Senior Director at Practice Greenhealth, a sister organization of Health Care Without Harm and a membership network that delivers environmental solutions to hospitals and health systems across the nation.
These staggering statistics are just one of the reasons healthcare organizations have begun to center environmental stewardship in their strategic decisions.
Sustainability within the context of healthcare refers to the implementation of cost-efficient, environmentally friendly practices to support healthy and resilient environments and communities over time, according to the American Hospital Association’s “Sustainability Roadmap for Healthcare.”
Sustainability in healthcare goes beyond just GHG reduction and encompasses waste mitigation, sustainable procurement, improving community health and more. Environmental health and human health go hand in hand – without a healthy planet, proper patient care cannot be delivered.
According to the AHA, sustainability in health care is based on a simple principle: Everything that humans need for their survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on the natural environment.
“Protecting and improving people’s health is the utmost priority and doing so in a responsible way is key to sustainable success,” said Christian Hutter, Associate Director, Sustainability and Packaging at B. Braun Medical Inc. “For manufacturers, ensuring that medical devices and packaging are not made with harmful chemicals like DEHP, reducing GHG emissions, minimizing waste, using renewable materials, designing for recyclability and reducing virgin plastics in a cost advantaged way are all areas of focus to serve healthcare systems today.”
Sustainable action
Fortunately, many hospitals, health systems and health organizations have now begun the process of implementing practical solutions to address carbon emissions and waste generation.
“As the industry aims to reduce its GHG emissions through investments in cleaner energy technologies, reducing waste, more use of renewable materials and less virgin plastics for example, the impact is both global and local,” said Hutter. “Less waste equals fewer collection trucks on the road, less landfill, less incineration, cleaner air, lower fossil fuel consumption and less chance for plastics to leak into our communities and environments.”
Recognizing a need for leadership in protecting the planet, B. Braun has pledged to reduce scopes 1 and 2 CO2 emissions 50% by 2030 versus a baseline of 2021. B. Braun announced in March that it has committed to purchasing renewable electricity for its operations in North America which will reduce those emissions by more than 30%. Globally, B. Braun has reduced its scopes 1 and 2 emissions by over 20% as of 2025.
This action will result in all of B.Braun’s U.S. based manufacturing facilities, affiliated distribution centers and locations in Pennsylvania being matched with 100% renewably sourced electricity from 2026 onwards.
“By purchasing matching Renewable Energy Credits for the electricity that we purchase in our NA operations, we are able to reduce the inherent environmental impact of our products and pass these benefits on to our customers,” said Hutter.
B. Braun is also taking additional steps to invest in alternative energy technologies, including the installation of a fuel cell microgrid at its 710,000 square foot IV fluid and generic pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Irvine, California. “These actions represent not a cost, but an investment in our collective future,” said Hutter.
“The planning horizon has changed,” said Jones. “A few years ago, most sustainability work in healthcare was reactive to regulation or a specific event. Now we’re seeing systems build genuine 10- and 20-year decarbonization roadmaps. That’s a different kind of institution.”