Mar 20, 2023 2 min read

Let's talk about Scope 3 in the healthcare sector

Source: Canva

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol defines GHG emissions and sets the global standard for how to measure, manage, and report GHGs. GHGs are classified as either Direct GHG emissions, those that come from sources owned or controlled by the reporting healthcare organization, or Indirect GHG emissions those which are a consequence of the activities of the reporting healthcare organization, but occur at sources owned or controlled by another institution.

What is Scope 3 again?

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Scope 3 within healthcare constitutes of indirect GHG emissions associated with the production, the packaging, the transportation and disposal of products and services the healthcare organization buys.

While there has been substantial initiative by the healthcare sector to reduce GHG emissions in Scope 1 and 2, Scope 3 is often seen as the prodigal and elusive sector that is not well understood, with limited reporting and is found to be significantly more challenging to quantify and monitor compared to Scopes 1 and 2.

Using the now familiar diagram of the Green House Gas (GHG) Protocol scopes in the context of the National Health Service (NHS) in England, Scope 3 encompasses everything from emissions from metered dose inhalers to staff commute to the manufacture of medicines and medical equipment.

Source: Delivering a 'NetZero' National Health Service

The GHG Protocol breaks down Scope 3 into 15 categories. Breaking these down in the context of healthcare:

A green paper by Healthcare Without Harm in collaboration with Arup looked at Healthcare's Climate Footprint. It put the global Scope 3 emissions of the healthcare sector at 71%, compared to the 17% and 12% of Scope 1 and 2, respectively.

Source: Global healthcare footprint split by GHGP scopes

As indicated in the Categories of Scope 3 emissions section, this includes everything from hospital equipment, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and more. What was especially interesting about this paper was that,

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76% of all health care emissions, including supply chain, are generated domestically.

This means that almost 25% of all health care carbon emissions are generated outside of the country where the health care product is ultimately consumed (HCWH, 2019).

Suffice to say, there is a fair amount of work to be done in understanding the Scope 3 emissions within the healthcare supply chain. Identifying the climate footprint hotspots and addressing them will be a crucial step in an organization's sustainability journey.