The Sustainable Healthcare Coalition is developing a tool to track carbon emissions from clinical trials and our Chair, Dr Fiona Adshead spoke to Clinical Trials Arena  about the project.

While the healthcare industry is responsible for saving millions of human lives, its work comes at a considerable cost to the environment.

The healthcare industry accounts for 4.4 – 4.6% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and similar percentages of toxic air pollutants, putting it up there with the most carbon-intensive service sectors in the industrialised world.

The race to cut carbon emissions and reach net-zero by 2030 is on but to get anywhere near that goal in under ten years, healthcare needs a sustainability overhaul, and that includes clinical trials.

In an insightful paper for The Lancet, SHC chair Fiona Adshead and colleagues shared their strategy to reduce the carbon footprint of clinical trials.

Clinical Trials Arena sat down with Adshead to discuss the paper, the coalition’s ‘Eco-Design Tool’ to measure the carbon footprint of trials and their suggestions for new processes, incentives and competencies for clinical trial stakeholders.