Sustainable kidney care

Welcome to the KitNewCare Sustainable Kidney Care Course

Within the decade, the whole world – including healthcare – must change course towards sustainability. The climate crisis poses a threat to human health and current models of healthcare contribute to climate change and ecological destruction. In this course, we explain the bi-directional relationship between health and the environment, with a focus on kidney care. Reducing the financial and environmental impact of services and improving their social value while ensuring a high standard of care is essential for making healthcare services sustainable. This course explores what healthcare workers in nephrology can do to become leaders in sustainable transformation, including outlining a range of practical examples and case studies, from prevention to reducing the environmental impact of dialysis.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the course, you will be able to:

Describe the risks the global environmental crisis presents to human health and healthcare systems.
Describe the contribution of the health sector, particularly kidney care, to the global environmental crisis.
Understand the basic principles of carbon literacy.
Understand how sustainability can help to address existing challenges in the healthcare system.
Apply the principles of sustainability to kidney care.
Plan a project to improve the sustainability of healthcare in your workplace.

Course Structure

Self-study online - Opening 3 weeks prior to the workshop this consists of 6 hrs of interactive online materials, presented in bite-sized chunks, covering all course content including background, theory, and case studies, with optional links to further information. Discussion points throughout the module allow you to reflect on your learning and start to get to know fellow participants and their areas of interest and work. At the end of the module, you are invited to sketch out a plan for a sustainability project you might want to undertake, in preparation for the workshop discussions. You can see a table of contents for the self-study materials here. We will email your certificate of completion

"Inspirational and reassuring to hear everyone else’s actions and sense of urgency. On a practical level, I feel more knowledgeable on where to aim my work for greater impact and have been directed towards lots of useful information sources and initiatives"

What future do we choose?

Human health is inextricably linked to the health of the earth’s natural systems, which create the air we breathe, the food we can grow, the proliferation of diseases and much more. This complex set of relationships is sometimes referred to as ‘planetary health’ and is increasingly recognized as a critical perspective in health improvement and protection. Since 1980 global greenhouse gas emissions have doubled, and human activity has removed about half the wild birds, mammals, fish, invertebrates and insects on our planet. The health implications of this are clear, and terrifying, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic starkly demonstrates this. Individuals, organizations, and movements across the world have called a climate emergency to respond. There is a huge amount to do and we are all needed. There are many important ways to make a difference and this course is a starting point for this exploration.

To kick off, we invite you to enjoy this evocative 2-minute video poem What Future Do We Choose?

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare is a registered charity working since 2008 to help the health sector reduce its carbon footprint, and it is now one of the world's foremost institutions for sustainable healthcare research and practice. The team draws on knowledge and experience from public health, clinical practice, environmental consultancy, research and public policy to develop the methods and metrics to reduce the footprint of clinical care.

Authors

CSH are grateful to the following people for their contribution to the development of this course:

Stephen Palmer - Renal technologist
Dr Eleanor Murray - Clinical research fellow
Dr Nina Brown - Consultant nephrologist
Dr John Stoves Consultant in nephrology and general medicine
Dr Mark Harber - Consultant nephrologist