Insurers like Bupa are part of a broader ecosystem intent on driving down carbon emissions across the healthcare sector.
This is according to Lyndsay Stecher, director of partnerships and development at Health Care Without Harm (pictured right), who was addressing delegates at Health & Protection’s latest IPMI Summit last week.
Health Care Without Harm works to drive change from the healthcare sector which accounts for 5% of global emissions, a figure that would make it the fifth largest country in terms of emissions.
When asked whether any insurers are signed up to Health Care Without Harm, Stecher said while its membership network is exclusively for organisations that are delivering healthcare directly, it does have partnerships with insurers.
“We recently had a new partnership launch with Bupa, who is investing in our network,” Stecher said.
“Obviously they have hospitals themselves and also when looking at the insurance market how they want to be part of that bigger change.
“They’re investing in this movement of best practice because there’s something in that for them to be part of that broader ecosystem, even if they can’t be a member in that formal sense.”
Stecher added the insurance sector faces a “huge challenge” from Scope 3 emissions – indirect emissions that occur in the value chain of an organisation such as the use of electricity, steam, heating and cooling
“You’re accountable for where services might be delivered in different places where you have control so how do you balance that with the clinical level of care are questions we know can be grappled with,” Stecher continued.
“We don’t have all the answers to that.”
