At the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, a new global platform designed to help health systems measure and reduce their carbon emissions was officially launched, with researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) playing a key role in its development.
Called the Lancet MedZero, the platform is the first of its kind to provide carbon data across the full spectrum of healthcare products and services, from pharmaceuticals and surgical instruments to diagnostics and care pathways. Developed by an international academic consortium convened by The Lancet, the platform launches with more than 14,000 entries, each with over half a million permutations.
Researchers from the Centre for Sustainable Medicine (CoSM), NUS Medicine, were among the academic partners behind the initiative, contributing carbon analytics, life cycle assessment data, and modelling tools that enable the platform to estimate emissions at scale.
The launch comes as healthcare systems worldwide face growing pressure to decarbonise. If healthcare were a country, it would rank as the world’s fifth largest carbon emitter, producing more emissions than aviation and shipping combined. Yet until now, carbon data has been available for less than one per cent of the products used in healthcare.
The team at CoSM contributed to several core areas of the platform, including generating carbon footprint data for medical products and healthcare services, developing models to estimate emissions from transport, usage and disposal, and ensuring the platform’s outputs are clinically relevant for hospitals, policymakers and frontline healthcare professionals.
Through the Lancet MedZero, healthcare institutions in Singapore will be able to learn more about the carbon impact of products and services, evaluate lower-emission procurement options, and redesign clinical workflows using evidence-based carbon data.
Following the launch, NUS Medicine and CoSM will continue working with healthcare institutions, policymakers and industry partners in Singapore to pilot the platform locally, validate data in Singapore’s healthcare context, and support wider adoption across the sector.
