Yale Center on Climate Change and Health; 3-Part Seminar: Care Without Carbon: Part 1: The Road to Sustainability in U.S. Health Care

This session will review the current state of sustainability accounting frameworks to help health care leaders prepare for near- and long-term sustainability efforts that address their most important environmental impacts, risks and opportunities.

Under the President Biden administration, and internationally, the pace to address the climate change is quickening. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (a.k.a Environmental, Social and corporate Governance (ESG) is now recognized by a majority of investors and many large non-profit entitites as a fundamental component of an organization’s value. Health care organizations are central figures in the climate crisis, both as large polluters and as frontline responders to the impacts of extreme weather and other environmental factors. However, very few health care organizations have CSR programs that align with the well-developed frameworks utilized in other sectors. This may change in the near future as US health care organizations are likely to be affected by mandatory CSR reporting; Catholic healthcare systems comprising one fifth of all US hospital beds increasingly heed the call of Pope Francis to prevent suffering by protecting the health of our environment; and as environmental determinants of health begin to increasingly pressure the financial performance of health care providers that utilize value based payment models.