JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN 

   for NH Hospital and Health System Sustainability 

AND SIGN ON BELOW 

The U.S. healthcare system currently generates 8.5% of our national carbon emissions, more than that emitted by the entire United Kingdom. (Dzau et al, NEJM 2021)  In doing so, the U.S. healthcare sector excessively contributes to the adverse health and sometimes lethal impact of climate change. This is inconsistent with healthcare’s mission to improve health, and is not sustainable. As climate change causes spiraling health impacts, not only will it increasingly strain health systems’ capacity and increase costs of care, it will threaten humanity’s very survival. (DeAlwis & LeMaye)  For these reasons, the WHO has designated climate change the greatest threat to human health of the 21st century.

As New Hampshire healthcare workers committed to protecting the health of our communities, we support the goals for health system environmental sustainability, established in April, 2022, by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

We urge all NH hospitals and health systems to join the over 650 private and public hospitals and health centers who have so far joined more than 200 federal hospitals and health facilities in the HHS pledge to:

1. Designate an executive lead for environmental sustainability by 2023;

2. Develop climate resilience plans for their facilities and their communities by the end of 2023;

3. Complete an inventory of supply chain emissions by the end of 2024;

4. Reduce their organization’s emissions 50% by 2030 and to net zero by 2050;

5. Publicly report progress on an annual basis.

We in turn pledge our support to help them achieve these goals through education, collaboration, and public advocacy.

As a small state, we could be first in the nation to achieve 100% engagement. (So far, 50% of Massachusetts hospitals and ZERO NH hospitals have signed the pledge!) It is the smart way to go economically, and the only way to go environmentally. Let us lead! The time is now for NH hospitals and health systems to take the HHS pledge!

NH HWCA is a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Collaborative to Decarbonize the U.S. Healthcare System and is committed to leading a campaign in NH to align our hospitals and health systems with these HHS goals for environmental sustainability. We will track and celebrate their progress as they attain each goal.

Resources provided by HHS to help with this process can be found here. Numerous other organizations have resources and guidance to support work to achieve healthcare system sustainability. These include: the U.S. DHHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, Practice Greenhealth, Health Care Without Harm, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine’s Collaborative to Decarbonize the U.S. Healthcare System, among many others. In NH, the NH Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (NH3E) under the NH Hospital Association has initiated a forum for health systems to address the challenges and opportunities together.