As the year gathers pace, the healthcare sector faces unprecedented challenges on its journey towards sustainabilityand the need for practical action has never been more urgent. What can we learn from our previous achievements to enable us to remain steadfast in our commitment to reduce environmental impact? Reflecting on lessons learned, I believe there are two key areas where we can focus to help deliver meaningful transformation across the healthcare industry.

The Power of Collaboration
There is a growing need to bring individuals together to drive impactful change and sustainable practices. Sustainability is a systems problem, and the full potential for change can only be realised if we collaborate across the sector. By actively engaging with others, we can achieve far more than we would alone, see problems from different perspectives, and find as yet unimagined solutions. Whilst resources are finite, the innovation and creativity generated through collaboration seems infinite and is only limited by our collective commitment to achieve it.

Our new clinical trial carbon calculator and clinical trials community of practice is a testament to the power of collaboration. I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who have partnered with the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition. Your ongoing support has played a key role in our collective efforts to drive forward this critical agenda. Together, we are committed to shaping a future for the healthcare sector that prioritises sustainability and improves patient outcomes.

The Need for a Common Language & Standardised Metrics to Drive Change
In addition to fostering collaboration, there is a need to establish a common language to align everyone involved towards our shared purpose. This shared language brings a collectiveunderstanding, which can be achieved through the development of consistent frameworks, guidelines, and metrics. By unifying such tools, we not only facilitate clearer communication but also cultivate a process that measures and evaluates sustainable practices within healthcare and drives change.

Through the establishment of this shared understanding, we can align ourselves to build practical standardised metrics and tools that will enable us to demonstrate tangible progress and make the best decisions to decarbonise healthcare.

Next Steps for Sustainable Healthcare Coalition
Our ambition for the year ahead remains to inspire and drive sustainable practice within the healthcare system, maximising value through innovation, eco-design, data-driven insights, and impactful partnerships. We will continue to champion being “sustainable by design” demonstrating through our work how this can be the key to unlocking healthcare efficiencies, reducing environmental impact and improving health outcomes.

One of our primary objectives this year is to continue our work on building sustainability into clinical trial development. Over the past few years, we have been developing a standardised method to assess the impact of clinical trials by defining common activities and their attributed carbon impact. We marked a significant milestone in February, as we launched a new knowledge hub alongside our carbon calculator tool.

We are also dedicated to continuing our efforts on building sustainability into care pathways design. Supporting our innovative care pathways calculator, later this year we will be launching a new knowledge hub dedicated to this initiative and continuing to demonstrate how this approach can be applied in practice. This work is important as it establishes a consistent methodology for appraising sustainability across various healthcare pathways.

The journey towards truly sustainable healthcare is a collective endeavour. If you’re interested in joining us in these innovativeapproaches to decarbonise trials and care pathways, get in contact by visiting: https://shcoalition.org