US Department of Health and Human Services Pledge to Reduce Emissions

On Earth Day, 4/22/22, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the (voluntary) Health Care Sector Commitments to Emissions Reduction and Resilience pledge. The pledge commitments are:

1. At minimum, reduce organizational emissions by 50% by 2030 (from a baseline no earlier than 2008) and achieve net-zero by 2050, publicly accounting for progress on this goal every year.
2. Designate an executive-level lead for our work on reducing emissions by 2023 and conduct an inventory of Scope 3 (supply chain) emissions by the end of 2024.
3. Develop and release a climate resilience plan for continuous operations by the end of 2023, anticipating the needs of groups in our community that experience disproportionate risk of climate-related harm.

Several CHN members worked together to get California health systems to sign the pledge, including Helen Wirth, Naomi Hauser, Marc Futernick, Jerry Abraham, and Bill Pevec. Here are the institutions who have signed on so far! 

It's NOT too late to work to get your institution to sign on -- the pledge will remain open until October 28, 2022. You can get more information here and you can use this template to reach out to your institution.