According to Michelle Dürksen, digital technologies hold great promise to cut emissions. As a Sustainability Consultant at Atos, she is an expert on this issue. In this MEDICA-tradefair.com interview, she talks about the role of digitization in decarbonization and explains how hospitals can go green successfully.
Ms. Dürksen, increased digitization contributes to high levels of carbon emissions. That’s why it sounds contradictory at first that more digital technologies should facilitate more sustainability. How can they help achieve net-zero emissions, meaning striking the balance between the amount of emissions emitted and emissions taken out of the atmosphere?
Michelle Dürksen: Digital technologies provide significant opportunities to help reduce emissions: Though they account for roughly 1.4 percent of global carbon emissions, they can actually help reduce the latter by 15% by 2030.
However, only about one-firth of companies around the world have a sustainable IT strategy, which means there is still a lot of room for improvement in this setting.
Digital solutions that can help an organization reach net zero include tools that can calculate the carbon footprint, business process improvements, and hardware optimization. Besides sustainability, many of these steps can also result in long-term cost savings.
What are some measures hospital facilities can take to achieve decarbonization?
Dürksen: As a first step, hospitals should calculate their carbon footprint to track all direct and indirect emissions. Ideally, this process includes many stakeholders, which enables the team to appreciate and understand the sustainability issue. The latter is imperative to prompt the necessary behavior and process adjustments.
It forms the basis for the second step, in which specific carbon emissions reduction targets are being defined. The next step entails the actual reduction of emissions. This might include a change to renewable energies, the implementation of energy efficient measures or waste reduction. The last step pertains to offsetting the currently unavoidable emissions. The offset is achieved through the purchase of carbon credits (carbon allowances or tradable certificates). These carbon credits are financing climate protection projects that reduce, remove, or avoid greenhouse gases.