Hospitals, health systems, and other care providers exist to protect human health, yet the industry itself contributes significantly to environmental harm that undermines public health. Hospitals rank among the most resource-intensive buildings to operate, and they often rely on supply chains that stretch around the globe. Meanwhile, climate change increasingly affects patient outcomes, making sustainability both an ethical imperative and an operational necessity.

What’s a healthcare organization to do? This article explores the link between sustainability and health outcomes, strategies for improvement, and how technology can contribute to meaningful progress.

What Is Environmental Sustainability in Healthcare?

Environmental sustainability in healthcare refers to the practice of providing medical services while minimizing negative environmental impacts. It encompasses efforts to reduce carbon emissions, manage waste, conserve water and energy, and develop supply chains that prioritize ecological and ethical considerations.

This concept extends beyond facility operations to include clinical decision-making, procurement practices, and organizational culture.

Key Takeaways

  • Sustainability and quality patient care reinforce each other through improved efficiency and healthier environments for patients, staff, and the wider community.
  • Carbon emissions, waste, and resource consumption all factor into healthcare’s environmental impact.
  • Key sustainability strategies include energy-efficient facility design, responsible procurement, and digital transformation.
  • Technology tools help healthcare organizations improve supply chain visibility and reduce waste through better inventory management.

Environmental Sustainability in Healthcare Explained

The urgency surrounding sustainability in healthcare has grown considerably in recent years, with research suggesting that pollution from the healthcare sector creates a disease burden comparable to preventable medical errors. As a result, healthcare organizations are recognizing that their environmental impact directly affects the communities they serve.

This recognition brings an ethical dimension into focus. The American Medical Association has argued that healthcare organizations have a responsibility to protect the environment as part of their broader mission to improve public health, through initiatives such as energy efficiency, waste management, sustainable procurement, and water conservation.

Regulatory and accreditation bodies are responding, as well. The World Health Organization (WHO) released updated guidance in late 2024 on climate-resilient healthcare facilities, and organizations like the Joint Commission have begun incorporating environmental considerations into their accreditation standards.

The Connection Between Sustainability and Health Outcomes

The health risks created by climate change are “reaching unprecedented levels” and are predicted to worsen, according to the Lancet’s 2025 global Countdown report. The connection between environmental degradation and human health is direct: Pollution from healthcare operations contributes to respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions that hospitals ultimately treat.

The scale of healthcare’s contribution is substantial, particularly when accounting for the industry’s share of global CO2 emissions. At the same time, sustainable facilities can create healthier healing environments. Improved ventilation, natural lighting, and nontoxic materials have been associated with faster patient recovery times and lower infection rates. Reducing healthcare’s environmental footprint may, over time, reduce the burden of environmentally mediated illness in the communities these organizations serve.

Environmental Impacts of the Healthcare Industry

Healthcare’s environmental footprint is defined by three major categories, each of which presents opportunities for meaningful improvement:

  • Carbon emissions: Globally, healthcare is responsible for roughly 5% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the WHO. Emissions stem from the operation of healthcare facilities themselves; purchased sources of energy, including heating and cooling; and the supply chain of goods and services. One possible area for improvement is reduced emissions from anesthetic gases and pressurized metered-dose inhalers, which can be achieved by minimizing use of certain inefficient vaporizers and inhalers.
  • Waste production: From single-use surgical instruments to individually wrapped supplies, plastic packaging, and expired medications, the healthcare sector generates enormous volumes of waste. Though the challenge is intensified by infection control practices that often favor disposable items, practices, such as safely disinfecting leftover supplies instead of discarding them, can reduce waste.
  • Resource consumption: Hospitals operate around the clock, requiring continuous energy for HVAC systems, lighting, medical equipment, and sterilization processes. Water consumption is similarly intensive, fed by cooling systems, sterilizers, and clinical operations. Energy audits and smart building management systems are among the ways to identify and reduce inefficiencies.

Sustainable Practices and Strategies in the Healthcare Sector

Healthcare organizations can address their environmental impact through a range of strategies that address facility design, procurement, materials, waste, water, and technology.

Energy-efficient Hospital Design

Building design plays a foundational role in a hospital’s long-term environmental performance. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system—developed by the US Green Building Council—provides a widely recognized benchmark for sustainable construction. Hospitals that have achieved LEED Platinum certification incorporate several elements, such as efficient HVAC systems, natural lighting, low-flow water fixtures, use of lox-toxicity materials, and combined heat and power facilities that capture waste heat to improve energy efficiency. In addition to the building itself, drought-resistant landscaping, native vegetation, and stormwater management systems can contribute to more sustainable site development.

Responsible Procurement

Supply chain sustainability represents one of the largest opportunities for emissions reduction. Strategies for sustainable procurement include partnering with suppliers that prioritize environmentally responsible practices and incorporating environmental metrics into vendor evaluations, as well as cost and quality. Some organizations have joined initiatives like the Carbon Disclosure Project—which integrates environmental data into procurement tools and includes sustainability performance language in supplier contracts—and Practice Greenhealth’s Greening the Supply Chain program, which promotes environmentally preferable purchasing practices in healthcare facilities. Diversifying the supplier base can also build resilience while maintaining environmental standards.

Sustainable Material Usage

Plastic-reduction efforts are increasingly common in hospitals and health systems. Where safety permits, shifting from single-use to reusable equipment can significantly reduce waste, though these transitions must accommodate strict sterilization standards. Evaluating products across their full lifecycle from raw materials through end-of-life disposal helps identify opportunities for improvement. Choosing safer chemicals and nontoxic materials in facility construction and daily operations further reduces environmental and health risks.

Waste Reduction Practices

Waste reduction efforts can make a measurable difference. For example, several years ago members of Practice Greenhealth managed to divert waste equivalent to the weight of 1,416 Boeing 747 jets. Effective strategies include advanced recycling programs, careful segregation of waste streams, and device reprocessing programs that allow certain single-use items to be sterilized and safely reused. Pharmaceutical waste reduction efforts, such as improved vial sizing, better inventory management, and drug return programs, present additional opportunities to cut down on waste.

Water Conservation Strategies

Sterilization operations represent a major source of water use within hospitals. Selectively managing autoclave operations, which use steam to kill bacteria, viruses, and other harmful organisms, is one way to reduce water use. Surgical equipment choices can have an impact, as well. Reusable laryngoscope blades, for example, save water and decrease carbon emissions, compared with disposable alternatives. Other effective tactics include installing low-flow fixtures and dual-flush toilets, preventing leaks through routine maintenance, retrofitting refrigeration and cooling systems, and metering water use to establish baselines and track progress.

Telemedicine and Digital Transformation

Digital technologies offer multiple pathways to reducing environmental impact. It’s worth noting that the systems described here work best when integrated into broader operational systems:

  • Telemedicine cuts down on patient and provider travel, lowering transportation-related emissions while expanding access to care.
  • Electronic health records eliminate paper waste and improve information-sharing across care teams.
  • Mobile health applications empower patients to manage conditions remotely, reducing unnecessary in-person visits.
  • Smart building systems help facilities measure and manage energy consumption in real time.
  • ERP systems connect financial, procurement, supply chain, and operational data, enabling organizations to measure environmental performance along with cost and quality.
  • AI and predictive analytics support demand forecasting and inventory management, decreasing waste from expired or excess supplies. Increasingly, machine learning models estimate the emissions embedded in purchased goods and services—impacts that are otherwise hard to measure.

Tips for Adopting Sustainable Healthcare Practices

Healthcare organizations can take practical steps toward improvement, regardless of how far they’ve progressed on their sustainability journey. The key is to identify an appropriate starting point and develop an action plan that defines clear milestones and metrics:

  • Conduct an environmental audit: Evaluate current energy use, water consumption, waste management, and supply chain practices. Establish a baseline for each factor that impacts sustainability to provide a foundation for measuring progress and identifying the highest-impact opportunities.
  • Set clear, measurable sustainability objectives: Define specific goals—such as reducing emissions by a certain percentage or diverting a targeted share of waste from landfills—and align them with recognized frameworks. Tools, such as the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, allow hospitals to benchmark energy performance against similar facilities and to estimate potential savings from improvements.
  • Educate and empower staff: Form green committees, launch educational campaigns, and create recognition programs that celebrate progress. As with many aspects of change management in healthcare, engagement tends to improve when staff members understand how sustainability supports patient care and operational efficiency.
  • Track and communicate progress: Use metrics, such as energy savings, waste diversion rates, and emissions reductions, to monitor performance. Scheduled internal and external reporting builds accountability and supports continuous improvement. Recognition programs, such as those offered by the American Society for Healthcare Engineering, highlight leaders in environmental responsibility and provide additional motivation.

Addressing Sustainable Healthcare Misconceptions

Misconceptions may slow sustainability adoption, but evidence shows that healthcare organizations can benefit from improving sustainability. Among the inaccurate assumptions:

  1. Healthcare can’t reduce waste without compromising safety: WHO frameworks spell out how climate-resilient facilities can reduce emissions while maintaining patient safety standards, whether through the use of reliable sources of renewable electricity or reduced reliance on plastic materials. Meanwhile, medical device reprocessing programs must meet strict US Food and Drug Administration sterilization requirements, which indicates that sustainability and safety are not mutually exclusive. Finally, many waste reduction opportunities exist outside direct clinical care, such as packaging, administrative materials, and food services.
  2. Sustainability is too expensive to pursue: The financial case for sustainability is well documented; many types of initiatives can save money. For example, a major health system in Rhode Island generated $46 million in savings by reducing waste and increasing use of renewable energy. In addition, federal and state tax credits, as well as utility rebates or grants from nonprofit organizations, can help health systems offset some of the capital costs of large-scale energy-efficiency projects.
  3. Sustainable healthcare is for hospitals only: Ambulatory care centers, dental practices, long-term care facilities, and outpatient clinics all contribute to healthcare’s environmental footprint. Strategies for addressing energy efficiency, waste reduction, and sustainable procurement apply across care settings. For example, one UK healthcare sustainability organization, in collaboration with clinical specialties, suggests that occupational therapy practices can limit staff travel time to appointments, accept suitable recycled equipment, and promote the use of technology to communicate with patients.

Software’s Role in Enabling Sustainable Healthcare Practices

Technology serves as an important tool for organizations working to measure, manage, and reduce their environmental impact at scale. One important example is healthcare inventory management software. Real-time tracking reduces waste from expired supplies, maintains appropriate stock levels, and prevents costly shortages while allowing organizations to identify patterns and adjust ordering practices accordingly. The visibility gained from supply chain software is another; the ability to trace items from sourcing through delivery helps verify suppliers’ sustainability claims. In addition, demand forecasting tools can reduce overproduction and waste by learning from usage patterns, while environmental, social, and governance reporting tools consistently track key metrics and generate reports for stakeholders.

ERP systems tie these capabilities together to help organizations identify sustainability initiatives with the greatest potential impact. They also deliver broader operational benefits, from inventory optimization to automated workflows and better resource allocation. In leading systems, many of these capabilities are powered by AI. Machine learning enhances demand forecasts by learning from usage patterns, while generative AI can draft the narrative sections of sustainability reports and flag anomalies for review. These tools work best when the underlying data from procurement, operations, and sustainability are connected.

Make Progress Toward Your Sustainability Goals With NetSuite

Achieving sustainability goals requires visibility, coordination, and data-driven decision-making across the organization. NetSuite Healthcare ERP supports organizations by providing the tools to manage these challenges, through a unified platform that’s capable of tracking inventory, automating stock replenishment, monitoring supplier performance, and more. NetSuite’s cloud-based architecture allows healthcare organizations to scale and adapt to evolving sustainability strategies without disruption.

Built-in AI, part of NetSuite Next, helps organizations turn that connected data into action. Demand forecasting learns from usage patterns to keep stock at the right level—cutting the expired-supply waste that burdens so many health systems—while anomaly detection can spot an unexpected energy spike at a single facility or a shift in a supplier’s sustainability performance. Staff can query this data conversationally through Ask Oracle, and AI agents can watch these conditions continuously, flagging exceptions for review within existing approval workflows.

Environmental sustainability and quality healthcare don’t have to be competing priorities. The business case is clear: Organizations that invest in sustainability can achieve significant cost savings, improve operational efficiency, and strengthen alignment with evolving regulatory expectations. The ethical case is equally compelling, as healthcare’s mission to protect health extends naturally to the environmental conditions that shape public health outcomes. Progress is achievable at any scale, from facility design decisions to daily operational choices. Organizations that commit to sustainability now position themselves for long-term resilience in a changing world.

Environmental Sustainability in Healthcare FAQs

Can sustainable healthcare reduce costs?

Sustainability initiatives in healthcare can generate significant savings through increased energy efficiency, lower procurement costs, and less water use. Tax incentives, grants, and many other funding opportunities are available in the United States to help healthcare organizations offset capital expenses as part of their long-term sustainability initiatives.

What is the purpose of sustainable healthcare?

Sustainable healthcare aims to deliver high-quality patient care while minimizing environmental harm. This includes reducing carbon emissions, managing waste, conserving resources, and building supply chains that prioritize ecological and ethical considerations.

Who is involved in implementing sustainable healthcare practices in the healthcare sector?

Hospital administrators, facility managers, procurement professionals, and clinical staff should all be involved. Many organizations form dedicated green teams or sustainability committees to coordinate efforts across departments.