Assessing greenhouse gas emissions in hospitals: The development of an open-access calculator and its application to a German case-study
Hospitals are major contributors to climate change. It is therefore essential to identify the main sources of hospitals’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to develop and monitor mitigation measures. Yet, a transparent and comprehensive hospital-specific GHG accounting methodology is currently lacking....
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Cleaner Environmental Systems |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266678942500008X |
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| Summary: | Hospitals are major contributors to climate change. It is therefore essential to identify the main sources of hospitals’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to develop and monitor mitigation measures. Yet, a transparent and comprehensive hospital-specific GHG accounting methodology is currently lacking. We have developed a hybrid methodology that follows the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard to calculate emissions. We used bottom-up approaches to scope 1 and 2 and, where feasible, to scope 3. Due to data scarcity, we used top-down approaches for several scope-3-categories. As a case study demonstration, we applied this methodology to a German university hospital: Scope 3 accounted for the majority of GHG emissions (164,529 t CO2e (71%)), while scopes 1 (6008 t CO2e (3%)) and 2 (60,565 t CO2e (26%)) contributed less. Methodological challenges remain, such as a limited accuracy and monitoring options for top-down approaches. Nonetheless, this case study demonstrates that the developed methodology supports hospitals in measuring GHG emissions as part of their regulatory requirements and responsibility to safeguard planetary health. |
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| ISSN: | 2666-7894 |