The ATACH Community of Practice resource repository aims to make resources which directly support delivery of the COP26 Health commitments easily accessible.
The resources can be filtered by:
- Resource type
- ATACH working group
- COP26 commitments
- Geographic applicability
Decarbonizing the healthcare supply chain: strategic actions for health systems
This report outlines practical strategies for decarbonizing health supply chains through aligning sustainable procurement practices, optimizing product and service use, and accelerating supplier action. It outlines key interventions for leaders and policymakers, including procurement levers and low-regret actions to reduce carbon emissions.
Measuring greenhouse gas emissions in health systems
This guidance defines a common approach for health system emissions measurement that is aligned with international standards and best practice, setting out how health systems can develop the necessary internal capabilities to measure emissions consistently and effectively over time.
Accelerating towards net zero: A guide for the Australian health system
This guide includes research and case studies from over 50 organisations and 135 health practitioners and policymakers across Australia,
Policy brief | Charting a Course to Net Zero Emissions for the European Healthcare Sector
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Europe developed this policy brief to offer actionable recommendations to national and sub-national health systems, ministries of health, and other governmental organisations derived from developing...
Aga Khan Health Services' Sustainability Guidelines for Staff
These Sustainability Guidelines are an open-access resource promoting staff-wide engagement in sustainable healthcare through practical strategies, awareness, and innovation, while emphasizing key co-benefits of sustainability in healthcare.
Safe, climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities: an overview
This guidance summarizes key information and strategies for creating safe, climate-resilient, and environmentally sustainable health care facilities. It provides definitions, actionable guidance, and resources for implementation by health care managers, practitioners, and national authorities.
Plant-powered Planet: Building a Healthy and Sustainable Food System
This evidence-based policy report highlights the importance of food system transformation for health and sustainability. It outlines key policy interventions to address interlinked challenges of food insecurity, environmental degradation, and health.
Lessons from patient safety to accelerate healthcare decarbonization
This article outlines key lessons learnt and best practices from the field of patient safety which could serve as catalysts to accelerate healthcare decarbonization and reduce greenwashing. It describes challenges and opportunities for healthcare sustainability efforts and provides several recommendations for additional steps to prevent greenwashing for voluntary sustainability programs.
National policies to accelerate climate action in US healthcare
This manuscript published in Nature Climate Change describes efforts to mobilize climate actions for U.S. healthcare, which contributes about 8.5% of national greenhouse gas emissions. The authors detail recommendations for...
Health Care Actions for Reducing Plastic Use and Pollution
This article describes how plastic waste from healthcare, much of which consists of single-use plastic devices, harms the environment and human health. The authors discuss sociotechnical approaches to reduce healthcare plastics...
Quality criteria for integrating health into Nationally Determined Contributions
The document provides guidance for integrating health into countries' Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), aiming to improve their quality and ambition. It supports national officials in understanding climate plans and key entry points for health, covering a structured approach, quality criteria, examples, and resources to address health impacts and promote climate-resilient and low-carbon sustainable health systems.
Health systems decarbonization: Lessons learned in building capacities in the sector
This brief presents key lessons learnt from Health Care Without Harm’s experience in greenhouse gas (GHG) national baselining, action planning initiatives, and capacity-building strategies. These lessons learnt can help shape future approaches for countries working to measure and reduce health care-related emissions and enhance sustainability.
WHO Case Study Series on Climate Change and Health (2022)
This case study series was published by the WHO in response to a call for case studies on climate and health in 2021-2022, in the momentum of COP26. These case studies showcase examples of work that is already being implemented...
Transition to sustainable plastic packaging for consumer healthcare products
This Position Paper from the Global Self Care Federation (GSCF) outlines the consumer healthcare industry's perspective on policies needed to enhance sustainable packaging for non-prescription medicines and food supplements. It...
Carbon Footprint Supplier Assessment Questionnaire
This document is a basic questionnaire to assess and report on the environmental and social impacts of pharmaceutical suppliers' practices. The questionnaire provides a general survey of impacts and practices in terms of carbon...
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Sectoral Guidance
This Sectoral Guidance document is designed as a simplified sectoral guidance to supplement general GHG protocol guidance. It aims to assist self-care suppliers in developing a GHG reduction strategy by providing non-technical...
Smart Hospital Initiative: Toolkit
This toolkit provides health system administrators and policymakers a practical guide to strengthening structural and operational aspects and providing green technologies, in order to improve hospitals' resilience and reduce their carbon footprint.
Online training course: Climate Change and Health
This is an interactive online course to understand the interlinkages between climate change and health and the opportunities for addressing the health risks of climate change, building climate resilient and low carbon health systems, promoting the health co-benefits of climate action, and being able to communicate this new knowledge to others.
Carbon Emissions Learning Lab
The Carbon Emissions Learning Lab (CELL) is an on-line platform to train users on decision making to achieve net zero health systems. It is a learning tool for leaders in the healthcare sector who are navigating net zero health systems. CELL provides users with a realistic, low-risk simulation, powered by real-world data, to analyze the implementation of carbon-reduction initiatives in hospital systems. CELL empowers users to become climate leaders through informed, sustainability-oriented decision-making.
Target setting for low carbon sustainable health systems
This document contains key considerations and a practical checklist to assist health system administrators and policy makers in setting credible and ambitious decarbonization targets for the health sector.