Dr. Myles Sergean
Physician and Executive Director of the Coalition
The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care helps hospitals, clinics, and health organizations deliver care that protects both people and the planet.
Canada’s health care system faces a paradox: sworn to “do no harm,” yet responsible for five per cent of our national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — a footprint larger than the airline industry. This contribution to the climate crisis creates a troubling feedback loop, where environmental degradation directly threatens public health in our emergency departments and clinics.
The consequences are not distant. During wildfires, emergency departments in Toronto and across Ontario have seen spikes in patients with respiratory distress. Floods have shuttered clinics, while extreme heat events have led to preventable deaths. These events strain frontline workers and disrupt care delivery by damaging health facilities and disrupting operations.
A prescription for resilience and emissions reduction
Meeting these challenges requires both resilient infrastructure and significant cuts in emissions. Resilience can involve retrofitting hospitals and long-term care homes with backup power or cooling centres to withstand extreme weather. Reduction begins with energy efficiency, waste management, and sustainable procurement — minimizing the footprint of supplies like medications while preventing service disruptions. Together, these measures create a health system that remains operational under stress and proactively shrinks its environmental footprint.
A national leader for a more sustainable health system
For over 25 years, the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care has played a central role in advancing sustainable health care in Canada. The registered charity equips a vast network of health professionals and facilities with the tools, knowledge, and partnerships needed to build a sustainable health care future.
Its work spans the entire spectrum of sustainability, from benchmarking energy use to pioneering innovative projects. “What health care providers tell us is simple,” says Dr. Myles Sergeant, a physician and Executive Director of the Coalition. “They’re eager to act on climate and sustainability — they just need the right tools, support, and a clear path forward.”
Accelerating transformation through key initiatives
The organization drives initiatives such as Preparing Canada’s Health Care Buildings for Net-Zero — funded by the Government of Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Implementation Readiness Fund — to accelerate decarbonization across the sector. This includes curbing harmful emissions through campaigns like Nix the Nitrous to address anesthetic gas leakage in hospitals and promote low-carbon technologies.
Other targeted initiatives include Indoor Heat-health Impacts, which addresses extreme indoor heat in long-term care homes and acute care facilities; Decarbonization in Action — a partnership with MaRS Discovery District funded by the Peter Gilgan Foundation that helps Canadian hospitals cut emissions; and Canadian Health Care Forests, which helps health facilities build nature-based infrastructure, rewilding green spaces to restore biodiversity, create carbon sinks, and lift patient and staff well-being.
The transformation also extends to finance and procurement. The Healthy Capital program — funded by the Trottier Family Foundation — supports hospital foundations in aligning their investments with their health missions and managing climate risk. Meanwhile, the Single-Use Plastics Reduction project — being undertaken with the financial support of Environment and Climate Change Canada — helps facilities reduce waste through targeted reduction, reuse, and recycling strategies.
Tools, reach, and a vision for the future
To support this work, the Coalition develops guidebooks, webinars, case studies, and learning sessions, many co-created with partners across Canada, to turn sustainability goals into practical steps. These resources serve executives planning upgrades, clinicians refining daily practice, and teams at every stage of their sustainability journey.
This collaborative model and the sector-wide momentum it creates earned the organization the title of Health Care Without Harm’s Climate Champion for North America in 2024, alongside a Gold Climate Leadership Award. Sustainability is no longer a “nice to have” — it’s a baseline requirement for safe, reliable health care.
With a reach spanning hospitals, long-term care homes, clinics, NGOs, government, and industry, the Coalition is powered by a diverse team of staff, advisors, members, and volunteers, and is helping to shape a health system built to last in our changing climate.
Visit greenhealthcare.ca to learn more, sign up for the bi-weekly newsletter The Green Digest, or participate in working groups and networking hubs.
