IHF and Deloitte to form green special interest group

The International Hospital Federation (IHF) has announced that it will form a special interest group (SIG) on sustainability in collaboration with Deloitte.

The announcement was made on 10 November at the World Hospital Conference (WHC) in Barcelona. The IHF also announced the winners of its annual IHF Awards at the conference.

According to the IHF, the SIG is intended to address a lack of common standards of measurement and approach within the healthcare industry which prevent comparisons and benchmarking. They argue that this in turn limits the ability of the healthcare sector to respond to the global sustainability agenda and its ability to meet national and global climate change goals such as for reductions in the industry’s carbon footprint.

The IHF says that it will work to:

• Create ‘thought-leadership content’, real-world case studies and instructional frameworks on how to be greener, for senior executives in the healthcare sector
• Share knowledge from healthcare leaders on how they are accelerating the sustainability agenda in their organizations, providing pragmatic advice on making an evidence-based business case for ‘green leadership’
• Showcase examples of innovative hospitals programmes from around the world, focused on responding to the sustainability and climate change agenda
• Leverage existing best practices, tools, and ongoing initiatives, such as Race to Zero.

A low carbon healthcare economy

The IHF cited estimates by the World Health Organization say that climate change is expected to cause more than 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.

The announcement coincides with the ongoing COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, which is being held between 31 October and 12 November.

“Our members recognise the imperative of responding to the sustainability agenda and are looking to the IHF as a source of knowledge exchange and good practices on climate change and healthcare leadership,” said Ronald Lavater, CEO of the IHF. “The IHF is uniquely positioned to support hospital executives to develop the skills needed to lead their organizations at this critical time. I am pleased to collaborate with Deloitte for this transformational work.”

“Within Deloitte we are also on our own transformation to a low carbon economy as part of our WorldClimate strategy,” added Dr Elizabeth Baca, a Clinician Strategist at Deloitte Consulting. “It is exciting to work with health stakeholders because they can play a significant role in pushing forward transformational change towards resilience. As part of the leadership for the sustainability working group, we look forward to supporting members of the IHF.”