Diagnosing Sustainability: Environmental Impacts, Human and Planetary Health Damages, and Societal Costs of a University Hospital

Main Presenter:    Lukas Messmann 

Co-Authors:   Johannes Zobel     Felix Assies      Sandra Köhler      Alex Cimprich      Renate Linné      Andrea Thorenz      Steven B. Young      Axel Tuma      

The healthcare sector faces increasing pressure due to the detrimental impacts on human health from sustained environmental degradation. Hospitals exacerbate this degradation through resource- and energy-intensive processes, from energy consumption to anaesthetic gas emissions to the procurement of consumables and capital assets. To support evidence-based mitigation strategies, a comprehensive assessment of hospitals’ impacts is essential. Addressing the often-narrow scope and the often spend-based, top-down approach of existing assessments, this study conducts a comprehensive, activity-based Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA) of a 1700-bed university hospital. For procurement, we employ ~1,200 product LCIs to cover ~5,500 purchased positions and rely on an extrapolation approach to address the remaining gaps. Building upon the LCA, we further quantify the hospital’s damage to human health, its externalized environmental costs, and its contribution to the transgression of
planetary boundaries over three years. Preliminary results identify procurement, energy, and waste as principal hotspots in most impact categories. In particular, the emission of greenhouse gases, particulate matter, and toxic substances is the main driver of the overall loss of about 322 disability-adjusted life years (DALY) and of externalized costs borne by society. Further assessments are anticipated to reveal the extent to which the assessed hospital, its operations, and individual processes and purchased items contribute to exceeding safe operating spaces within planetary boundaries. This study also demonstrates the utility of integrating DALYs, externalized costs, and a planetary boundaries perspective into LCA results to communicate complex adverse impacts to healthcare professionals and policymakers.

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