Healing Patients and the Planet: Healthcare’s Growing Role in the Climate Health Conversation

Climate conversations around the world have long featured both rich debate and cutting condemnations. While fossil fuel companies and industrial manufacturers are prevalent targets, the healthcare sector is gaining prominence in climate health discussions.

With its energy-intensive healthcare facilities and the complex supply chain of goods and services needed to support care, the sector has become a major player in global climate change discussions and a focus for environmental stewardship solutions.

With regulatory and public scrutiny escalating, healthcare companies must recognize dual, potentially competing priorities: healers of both the patients and the planet.

The Current Reality: Healthcare’s Global Environmental Impact

The healthcare sector has a significant global environmental impact, with an estimated climate footprint equivalent to 4.4 percent of global net emissions. As international NGO Health Care Without Harm stated in a 2024 report, “If the health sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter on the planet.”(1)

The U.S. leads all other countries in greenhouse gas emissions for healthcare, accounting for approximately 25 percent of greenhouse gas healthcare emissions worldwide.(2) The healthcare sector also has an outsize impact within the U.S.: With electricity and natural gas the most-used fuel, it is estimated that U.S. healthcare buildings account for nine percent of all commercial building fuel use – but only represent four percent of all commercial floorspace.(3)

The environmental impact of the healthcare sector affects more than just physical health: It also contributes to the rising cost of care itself.

The estimated health costs of air pollution and climate change surpass $800 billion per year in the U.S. alone, while World Bank estimates put climate change-driven excess health costs in low and middle-income countries to at least $21 trillion by 2050.(4,5)

From increased demand for illnesses requiring emergency department visits and inpatient care to weather-related facility interruptions and lost productivity due to illness, the healthcare sector is increasingly facing environmental conditions that make daily operations more expensive. Healthcare issues related to pollution exposure include cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, neurological diseases, and others, with an estimated 9 million deaths worldwide.(6,7) In an industry striving for value-based care, the financial effects of climate-related health conditions impede progress.(8)

ESG Reporting on the Rise

Increasing regulatory scrutiny around environmental impact adds to the challenge of balancing patient care imperatives with sustainability initiatives. Mandatory ESG performance reporting, regardless of business sector, is a growing global trend, with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) a prominent example. The law requires EU businesses, including qualifying EU subsidiaries of non-EU companies, to disclose their environmental and social impacts and how ESG-related actions affect their businesses. The U.K., Mexico, China, and multiple other countries have also implemented mandatory reporting legislation.

The regulatory framework in the U.S. is still evolving, and recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings signal an increasingly fragmented compliance landscape and a trend towards limiting federal environmental authority. Though most healthcare companies do not meet the emission levels required for mandatory federal reporting under the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, they may be subject to provisions in the Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as well as OSHA standards related to emissions and hazardous waste management. State laws targeting emission continue to vary around the country, but none specifically target hospitals or healthcare systems or directly mandate hospitals to file ESG reports. While some states are advancing mandatory disclosure and climate risk transparency, others have steered away from ESG mandates or even prohibited them in state contracting or investing.

Specific to public companies but worth following for potential implications on the sector at large: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 2024 climate disclosure rule. After facing mounting legal challenges, which would have required public companies to disclose certain ESG-related risks to investors, the proposed rule is currently stayed (not enforced). However, healthcare companies are still subject to the SEC’s material risk disclosure requirements.

Escalating Public Interest: Patient, Providers, and Investors

A growing public interest in climate health accompanies this shifting regulatory landscape. Sustainability matters to healthcare stakeholders, from patients and providers to investors. Sixty-one percent of Americans want to learn how to protect their health from adverse climate effects — and 69 percent trust health professionals for climate health information.(9) Healthcare professionals agree. A recent nationwide study of more than 1,000 clinicians found that about four in five clinicians surveyed believe it is important for their hospital to address climate change and that doing so is aligned with their organization’s mission.(10) Moreover, a majority of respondents also said an organization’s environmental impact reduction efforts would play a role in their decision to remain or leave for another organization.(11) As the healthcare sector continues to experience a workforce shortage, these sentiments may begin to matter more than ever before.

Similarly, investor interest in the healthcare sector continues to rise, with ESG expectations growing in tandem. A 2022 report surveying investors in the U.S., UK, and Canada found 81 percent believed companies with strong ESG performance deserve a premium valuation, and 76 percent believed those companies are more resilient in a crisis.(12) While public discourse around climate change has questioned whether ESG interest is a trend or a new societal standard, it is clear healthcare stakeholders are focusing on it nonetheless.

Balancing Patient and Climate Health: Communications as a Competitive Advantage

With costs, outcomes, compliance, and stakeholder sentiment at stake, healthcare leaders are taking steps to lessen environmental impact. They are tackling the challenges from multiple angles, including optimizing supply chains to reduce carbon emissions and transitioning to more energy-efficient systems, technologies, and equipment.

But as they implement operational solutions, healthcare leaders must also confront the parallel challenge: communicating their commitment to judicious environmental stewardship in harmony with patient safety and quality. Leaders who view communication strategies not just as risk mitigation tools but also as strategic growth levers can project a value proposition that resonates with patients, providers, investors, and regulators. The result: building trust, strengthening brand equity, and driving long-term resilience. Some strategies include:

1. Own the narrative with transparent reporting.

Proactive, transparent reporting on emissions, ESG standards, and other environmental impact metrics not only satisfies stakeholders’ interests — it also differentiates companies in the market. Others may report only where regulations require, but healthcare companies that publish results regardless of the law go beyond mere rhetoric about climate health initiatives. They assert their accountability.

However, transparency means little without public understanding. Sustainability initiatives can be based on complex scientific data, so breaking it down for stakeholders in plain language they can comprehend helps ensure it will resonate. Reporting to investors will look different than reporting to the local community; it’s all the same metrics, but take care to refine it into the language your target stakeholders can understand.

2. Signal credibility with voluntary certifications.

Voluntary certifications can also affirm a climate health commitment while providing a strategic framework for implementing environmentally friendly initiatives. Healthcare accreditor The Joint Commission launched its Sustainable Healthcare Certification in 2024 as a way for U.S. hospitals to improve sustainability efforts while gaining public recognition of their commitment. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and ENERGY STAR certifications also help leaders demonstrate energy efficiencies and cost savings aligned with ESG goals. Healthcare companies that invest in certifications can see the returns both in their bottom lines and in their brand value.

3. Connect climate wins to care outcomes.

Harness the narrative by highlighting leadership in renewable energy as a benefit to individual patient care. Highlight how sustainable practices enhance patient care, positioning investment in environmental impact initiatives as complementary to care, not in competition with it. Humanize the data by showing how the improved air quality from HVAC upgrades eased respiratory issues in patients and staff or how newly designed facilities offer more natural light and green spaces help lower patients’ stress and anxiety. These benefits tie directly to quality measures and patient safety goals, positioning climate action as a lever for delivering high-quality, cost-effective, and person-centered care.

4. Protect trust through honest messaging.

Healthcare leaders must craft messages with an understanding that greenwashing allegations can draw negative media attention and undermine investor confidence, among other consequences. Using public relations or marketing tactics that embellish or mispresent a healthcare company’s commitment to sustainability risks both compromising credibility and violating federal law under the Federal Trade Commission Act. The FTC’s Green Guides can also help avoid misleading environmental claims, offering an audit framework to review communication assets, policies, and processes for indicators of greenwashing. (13)

Further, start with your stakeholders in mind by incorporating data-backed insights that complement factual claims. Understanding audience behavior and feelings, whether through web analytics and social listening tools or via surveys and focus groups, can help ground messages in documented evidence and show what could resonate with audiences.

A focus on data-driven, transparent messaging will demonstrate integrity and authentic commitment without compromising reputation. Healthcare leaders who shepherd their companies through these climate challenges without compromising care can survive. But those who best communicate this progress can build the trust and credibility required to thrive.

(1) Health care’s climate footprint is equivalent to 4.4% of global net emissions
(2) Health Care Pollution And Public Health Damage In The United States: An Update | Health Affairs
(3) Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS)
(4) The Costs of Inaction: The Economic Burden of Fossil Fuels and Climate Change on Health in the United States (PDF)  
(5) Health and Climate Change
(6) Air Pollution and Your Health  
(7) Pollution and health: a progress update 
(8) Climate change and health care | Deloitte Insights 
(9) Americans Voice a Clear Call for Health Professionals to Lead on Climate
(10) U.S. Health Care Workers Want Their Employers to Address Climate Change
(11) The Commonwealth Fund
(12) 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer
(13). FTC Part 260: Guides for the use of environmental marketing claims

Bridget Haeg
U.S Corporate Affairs Director, Healthcare