The healthcare sector is one of the largest polluter
s
in the U
nited
K
ingdom
,
accounting for
25
% of total emissions of carbon dioxide
of the public sector.
Ironically,
it is
the healthcare sector itself
that is
primarily
affected by any
deterioration
in
the
environment
affect
ing
individuals’ health and their demand
for
health
care.
The
refore the
healthcare sector is a direct beneficiary of its own
steps
towards sustainability
and is more and more viewed as the one who should
lead the change
. In this article, we first review the concepts of financial
and
environmental sustainability.
Second
,
we
discuss
the existing evidence of
sustainable
changes
within
this sector. Third, w
e propose a simple
adaptation of
the classic cost
-
effectiveness
analysis to incorporate carbon footprint
ing to
account for these external costs
. We
illustrate our
method using the case of in
-
centre v
ersus
home haemodialysis.
We conclude that home dialysis is always a
preferable alternative to in
-
centre treatment.
Finally, we discuss the limitations
of our approach, and the future research agenda.