Transforming Clinical Care to be Green and Climate Ready
The health sector has been slow to devise sustainable healthcare systems resilient to climate change despite its heavy carbon footprint, accounting for close to 9% of U.S. emissions and 5% globally. The capacity of health systems to deliver care that meets health needs is also jeopardized by extreme weather events and unstable climate conditions.
Our Center for Climate, Health and Equity is working to ensure that UCSF’s clinical programs are climate ready, attentive to the climate-sensitive health needs of patients, and prepared for climate-related health impacts and disasters.
- We will bolster and evaluate institutional efforts to reduce UCSF’s carbon footprint in order to build an evidence base for these sustainable solutions.
- We plan to help transform the way patient care is delivered by developing clinical teaching, patient care, and patient education tools that address climate-sensitive illness and health inequities.
- We also aim to build our presence as a community anchor during periods of acute climate threats.
Our goal will be to create guidelines, tools, and metrics to promote climate-smart clinical care in California and beyond.