https://undark.org/2023/10/05/hospital-emissions-deaths/
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- The average energy intensity of U.S. hospitals is more than twice that of European hospitals, with no comparable quality advantage.
- In recent years, less than 2 percent of hospitals were certified as energy efficient by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program, and only 0.6 percent, or 37 in total, have been certified for 2023.
- As a result, in 2018, the U.S. health care industry emitted approximately 610 million tons of greenhouse gases, or GHGs — the equivalent of burning 619 billion pounds of coal.
- This represented 8.5 percent of U.S. GHG emissions that year, and about 25 percent of global health care emissions.
- If U.S. health care were its own country, it would rank 11th worldwide in GHG pollution.