Healthcare Divest from Fossil Fuels

Private healthcare organizations and hospital systems across the U.S. quietly invest $billions of dollars directly in fossil fuels through staff pensions, retirement funds and other financial holdings. Our large health organizations involved in climate and health policy, such as Healthcare Without Harm and the National Academy of Medicine, have wholly ignored this even though it's likely the single largest source of health sector greenhouse gas emissions. Financing fossil fuels enables massive new fossil fuel production which locks in worsening climate change and the wide range of health harms associated with it, impacting millions of people and adding tremendous burden to local healthcare delivery systems across the world. The impacts are suffered disproportionately across the Global South and by historically marginalized communities, including indigenous communities and the health-compromised, on every continent. Healthcare organizations have ignored the sector's massive institutional investments in fossil fuels even while publicly supporting the well-publicized "calls to action" for the sector to 'decarbonize' - instead focusing exclusively on incremental 'operational' emission reductions such as reducing energy use inside hospitals or establishing more plant-based menus in hospital cafeterias - while still investing $billions directly into fossil fuels on the front end. It's the biggest, most hypocritical failure of the US health sector's response to climate change, fiscally irresponsible, and a profound detriment to public health. Health professionals pledge their careers to protecting health. It's time our own institutions live up to the fundamental ethos of healthcare - and divest from fossil fuels. Please add your voice. Browse this website to learn more.