TY - JOUR
T1 - The Biodiversity Impact of Health Care
T2 - Quantifying the Extinction-Risk Footprint of Health Care in The Netherlands and Other European Countries
AU - Irwin, Amanda
AU - Geschke, Arne
AU - Mackenbach, Johan P.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 by the authors.
PY - 2024/2/5
Y1 - 2024/2/5
N2 - The health care sector exists to support and promote human wellbeing; however, its operations contribute to environmental degradation undermining nature’s capacity to support the same wellbeing. Biodiversity loss, in particular, creates threats to wellbeing through a reduction in ecosystem service provisioning and increases in disease. This study aims to estimate the extinction-risk footprint associated with the health care sector, focusing on Europe. We created an environmentally-extended multi-region input–output model using data on the extinction risk of species available from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Using input–output analysis, we then quantified the extinction-risk footprint of the Dutch health care sector and, for comparison, that of the 30 European nations which use similar sector classifications in their National Accounts reporting. We found that the Netherlands has the highest health care extinction-risk footprint on a per-capita basis and that health care contributes 4.4% of the Dutch consumption extinction-risk footprint compared with an average of 2.6% across the comparator set. Food and beverage supply chains make a disproportionate contribution to health care’s extinction-risk footprint, while supply chains implicated in the sector’s carbon footprint make a limited contribution. These results suggest that reducing the environmental impact of the health care sector may require a differentiated approach when multiple environmental indicators are considered.
AB - The health care sector exists to support and promote human wellbeing; however, its operations contribute to environmental degradation undermining nature’s capacity to support the same wellbeing. Biodiversity loss, in particular, creates threats to wellbeing through a reduction in ecosystem service provisioning and increases in disease. This study aims to estimate the extinction-risk footprint associated with the health care sector, focusing on Europe. We created an environmentally-extended multi-region input–output model using data on the extinction risk of species available from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Using input–output analysis, we then quantified the extinction-risk footprint of the Dutch health care sector and, for comparison, that of the 30 European nations which use similar sector classifications in their National Accounts reporting. We found that the Netherlands has the highest health care extinction-risk footprint on a per-capita basis and that health care contributes 4.4% of the Dutch consumption extinction-risk footprint compared with an average of 2.6% across the comparator set. Food and beverage supply chains make a disproportionate contribution to health care’s extinction-risk footprint, while supply chains implicated in the sector’s carbon footprint make a limited contribution. These results suggest that reducing the environmental impact of the health care sector may require a differentiated approach when multiple environmental indicators are considered.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85184471151&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su16031343
DO - 10.3390/su16031343
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85184471151
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 16
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 3
M1 - 1343
ER -