Healthcare sustainability through an industrial ecology lens

Waste generated from a single surgical procedure in a U.S. hospital (photo credit: Cassandra Thiel; https://doi.org/10.1021/es504719g)

Healthcare is a critical service sector with a sizable environmental “footprint” – both directly (e.g., from onsite energy and water use and waste generation), and indirectly (e.g., from the production of healthcare-related products like medical devices and pharmaceuticals).

Yet, as our recent review indicates, the existing literature on healthcare sustainability is highly fragmented. Our research applies industrial ecology approaches to examine this area more systematically.

Project contributors

Steven B. Young^a,b, Guido Sonnemann^c, Cassandra Thiel^d, Alex Cimprich^a,b, Ankesh Siddhantakar^a,b, Maliha Tariq^a,b, Jair Santillán‐Saldivar^a,b,c

^aWaterloo Industrial Ecology Group

^bSchool of Environment, Enterprise and Development

^cCyVi, ISM, University of Bordeaux

^dGrossman School of Medicine, New York University

Funding and support

University of Bordeaux Initiative of Excellence (IdEx)