US Government Health and Human Services - Healthcare Sector Pledge

Sara The large Mid-American Catholic system, Ascension, has signed on.  They had already made similar commitments for the first two elements of the Pledge.  They are already on track for the Scope 1 and 2 emissions reductions, and have even tied exectuve compensation to accomplishing these goals.  The Scope 3 inventory is a big piece of work that they are well into, but are challenged by the lack of information that their supply chain vendor community has on its own carbon footprint.   Some estimates are that, for healthcare, at least, Scope 3 is at least 3/4 of their total footprint. They have had some trouble with their approach to the third element, as it is somewhat more qualitative in nature as compared to the first two, and is much more about having plans rather than achieving specific and measurable results.  I was talking with their sustainability chief, Dan Scher (who works out of their St Louis headquarters), about this at the CleanMed conference in Kansas City last month, and it seems like they have come to a decision about how to couch their response to that 3rd leg of the Pledge, but he didn't provide much in the way of detail other than to indicate the response is being tailored to fit each facility and the population it serves (in other words, following the pledge statement almost word-for-word). I would urge a health system to look into the tools and support provided by Practice Greenhealth and Health Care Without Harm.