The first step to reducing the carbon footprint of clinical trials is to develop a tool to measure reliably the carbon footprint of trials and identify which elements of trials are carbon-heavy. The Sustainable Healthcare Coalition, which was set up by NHS England to bring together the public health sector with commercial suppliers in addressing sustainability issues affecting healthcare, has developed a tool it is now testing on trials. The coalition has brought together a working party of triallists, clinicians, commercial companies, and others to work to reduce the carbon footprint of clinical trials to net zero. Tools to measure the carbon footprint are never perfect, but the tool that is being tested by the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition is expected to be reliable enough for measuring progress and benchmarking.

This article, recently published in The Lancet, explains the approach we are adopting.