The provision and delivery of healthcare will be disrupted by a double carbon constraint: the health sector must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and seek alternatives to diminishing fossil energy resources. Additionally, it must simultaneously manage the health impacts of ecosystem degradation and climate crises on populations.
Healthcare facilities, primary care practices, community pharmacies that dispense products through specific channels: for medicines, exclusively through community pharmacies or hospital pharmacies; for medical devices, via medical equipment stores or directly from manufacturers.
Responsible for constructing, maintaining, and renovating healthcare facilities, medico-social establishments, health centers and clinics, factories, research and development laboratories, and corporate headquarters.
Primarily daily mobility enabling the movement of patients and healthcare professionals. It also affects the overall health of the population through daily physical activity and air pollution.
Additionally, international travel by train or plane, as well as air, maritime, and road freight, which supports the upstream and downstream logistics of goods, integrating healthcare industries into globalization.
Which supplies collective catering in healthcare establishments and for sector employees. It also influences the overall health of the population through daily nutrition.
Underpinning all digital transformations in healthcare, medically (technological medical devices, patient monitoring, telemedicine), industrially, and administratively. It also includes the digital component of an increasing number of devices.
Providing electricity, oil, and gas to power all machinery, whether in facilities (heating, devices, kitchen mixers and ovens…), factories (heating, equipment, machine tools, etc.), vehicles for transporting patients, staff, or supplies.
Influencing the relationship between healthcare facilities and their territories and populations, as well as decisions regarding the construction of production sites and logistics centers.
8 %
2,6 million
50 %
10 million
The Shift explores all decarbonization levers: energy substitution, efficiency, and sobriety, regardless of the degree of technological and behavioral changes required. Leveraging all available levers is a guarantee to achieve the set decarbonization targets while ensuring an equal or even better level of population health.
Train, consult, and support stakeholders in the sector. Expand the obligation to conduct a full GHG (greenhouse gas) assessment, including for establishment projects, research, and reforms. Introduce a carbon criterion for the access of health products to the French market and for procurement. Train healthcare professionals on the climate emergency and eco-design.
Reduce energy consumption in buildings: energy renovation, sobriety, and replacement of oil and gas heating systems with low-carbon alternatives. Systematize the offering of vegetarian meals and limit food waste. Deploy a mobility plan for employees and patients: promote active mobility and public transport, replace thermal vehicle fleets with electric and lightweight vehicles, develop telemedicine and e-learning training to reduce the need for air travel.
Specific solutions must be studied to address the diversity of products. Decarbonize energy (electricity, industrial steam, and gas) used in the production of raw materials (partly fossil-based) and optimize industrial processes. Decarbonize logistics by minimizing air freight usage. Relocate production sites to benefit from a low-carbon energy mix and reduce transport distances. Favor low-carbon medical gases and inhalers, and reduce the electrical consumption of medical equipment. Develop circular economy sectors for medical equipment. Decarbonize R&D and support functions.
Adapt prescriptions to real needs to limit over-prescription and reduce waste. Additionally, act upstream on individual health through prevention and health promotion. This could involve healthier diets, increased physical activity, support to reduce addictions, etc. Further work by the Shift Project will consolidate these recommendations.
By 2050, the healthcare system has succeeded in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of five, despite the immense challenges posed by an aging population, the rise of chronic diseases, and the worsening health impacts of climate change. This profound transformation resulted in a significant reduction in dependence on fossil fuels—gas, oil, coal—making healthcare facilities more resilient to energy and geopolitical crises.
Beyond the numbers, this transition generated numerous co-benefits: more sustainable medical practices, healthier diets, and improved mobility for better health. Healthcare professionals, as trusted figures and key intermediaries in this transformation, deeply supported behavior changes, contributing to decarbonization well beyond the healthcare sector.
The transition did not stop at care delivery: by addressing the determinants of health, policies promoting health and prevention fostered a healthier society overall.
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