Wellcome report identifies more than 140 initiatives to make health research more environmentally sustainable.
Implementing a series of sustainable practices in health research could help the field to reduce its hefty carbon footprint, according to a report commissioned by health-research funder Wellcome.
The climate crisis is an ever-growing threat to human health, yet health research itself contributes to the crisis through its energy consumption and waste production. A 2011 study1 found that a single clinical trial can produce around 180 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year — the equivalent of what 35 UK residents produce annually. Cold storage in laboratories is one of the largest consumers of energy in the field; many life-sciences studies require materials to be kept in refrigerators and freezers for long time periods. Plastic waste is also an issue: lab research produced an estimated 5.5 million tonnes globally in 2015, accounting for nearly 2% of total plastic waste.
“We kind of let a lot slide in health research and practice because we’re trying to help people’s health,” says Talia Caplan, a research manager at Wellcome in London.
