Earth Day is April 22, and BC Renal is right in step to help change behaviours and improve both environmental sustainability and health outcomes. Our new Environmental Sustainability web page is where you will find information about various initiatives and resources. The page lists six key areas of focus and offers examples of green initiatives supported to date. 

The page’s opening paragraph succinctly summarizes why we’re taking steps: “As a health-care organization, we are mindful of the link between a healthy environment and a healthy population, and the important role we can play in both reducing our collective environmental footprint and ensuring our ability to respond to current and future environmental threats.” 

Gloria Freeborn, who is BC Renal’s director of Strategic Initiatives, Education and Development, elaborates: “There’s no doubt kidney care services have a significant environmental impact, and that climate change itself negatively affects kidney health and outcomes. BC Renal is committed to better understanding and reducing our collective environmental footprint. A starting point to incorporate environmental stewardship into kidney care is our life cycle assessments (LCA) collaboration with the UBC Planetary Healthcare Lab, for all kidney therapies.”

BC Renal and the UBC Planetary Healthcare Lab are conducting ‘life cycle assessments’ (LCAs) of kidney therapies, including pre-dialysis, dialysis, transplantation and conservative care. 

BC Renal network members are active participants of the Sustainable Nephrology Action Planning (SNAP) committee, a Canada-wide group of providers dedicated to aligning kidney care with planetary health principles, and were involved in a recent publication titled, Redesigning Kidney Care for the Anthropocene: A New Framework for Planetary Health in Nephrology.

BC Renal is a member of the Green Care network, which unites efforts across the BC health-care community to transform our health-care system toward an environmentally sustainable and resilient care for healthy people, places, and the planet. 

Another collaborative effort is an eye-catching Sustainable Kidney Care infographic. Funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the 11-page PDF is the combined work of the Canadian Society of Nephrology (CSN), Sustainable Nephrology Action Planning (SNAP), and CASCADES (Creating a Sustainable Canadian Health System in a Climate Crisis).

Island Health nephrologist and active CASCADES participant Dr. Caroline Stigant says CASCADES “seeks to build capacity of Canada’s health-care community to achieve resilient, net-zero health care by increasing awareness and motivation, and by developing the skills, tools and networks to enable action.”

Dr. Stigant continues, “SNAP’s vision is ‘kidney and planetary health through sustainable nephrology practice.’ The core component of the infographic is ‘Ten Steps to Sustainability,’” which was adapted from the BC Renal Province Wide Rounds webinar she presented on Earth Day 2022.

She also notes, “SNAP wanted a deliverable that was more tangible than a recorded rounds presentation. With our CASCADES partners, we decided on an infographic with comprehensive information in an appealing and approachable visual format. We’re very pleased with its positive feedback and hope it serves as a useful document for our Canadian peers and an adaptable example for our international colleagues.”

Join Dr. Caroline Stigant online on Friday, April 21 for her online presentation, Environmentally Sustainable Kidney Care. For more information and to register, visit BC Renal’s Province Wide Rounds page.