Stanford
Stanford Climate and Health

About Us

Who are we?

Founded in December 2019, Stanford Climate and Health (SCH) is a group of faculty and students committed to addressing both climate change’s impact on health and the healthcare system’s impact on climate change. We aim to make Stanford the world leader in achieving decarbonization and resilience in health care. Stanford faculty and students will:

  • Research, develop & scale zero-emissions materials and practices. These will enable Stanford Health Care to be the first system to achieve net-zero emissions in all scopes.

  • Develop and implement local, state, national and international policy to enable all healthcare systems to achieve carbon neutrality and resilience.

  • Educate leaders in all six of Stanford’s schools to achieve the above.

What does climate change have to do with human health?

The World Health Organization has declared climate change to be “the greatest threat to global health of the 21st century” (WHO 2015). The health care sector contributes 10% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (Eckleman 2016). 71% of health care emissions are Scope III emissions; these are much more challenging to reduce than Scope I or II emissions (Karliner 2019). In January 2020, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS)  became the first health care system on the planet to commit to carbon neutrality in Scope III emissions (NHS 2020). The reduction of health care emissions is a neglected problem, and will require research, innovation, collaboration, and policy (Sherman 2019). 

Group Accomplishments:

 

Find our presentation slides from our January introduction meeting here!