In the last decade, environmental impact assessment has become a major concern for human activities, which is particularly true for health. The french healthcare sector emits approximately 49 million tons of CO ₂ equivalent (CO ₂ eq) per year, approximately 8% of the total national Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. In this context, assessing the carbon footprint of a resource-consuming unit like the cytotoxic drug production unit (CPU) is essential. The study aimed to assess the carbon footprint of a CPU.
A retrospective study was conducted in a french CPU producing more than 51,000 preparations per year in 2022. Global warming impact of CO ₂ eq emissions were determined for medicines (using the French monetary Emission Factor), single-use material (using the Base Empreinte ^® database), energy of electrical devices, staff transportation and waste.
The carbon footprint of the CPU was equal to 18'230.7 tons of CO ₂ eq. Antineoplastic drugs accounted for more than 18'179 tons of CO ₂ eq emissions. Excluding the medication part, it was equal to 51.7 tons of CO ₂ eq. More precisely the distribution of CO ₂ eq emission sources were staff transportation (35.9%), waste (21.1%), single-use sterile medical devices (18.1%), energy consumption (9.3%), disposable personal protective equipment (8.5%), and solvent bags and bottles (7.1%).
This study prompts us to identify the main sources of GHG emissions within a CPU. Areas for improvement to reduce global warming impact might be deprescribing of antineoplastic drugs, staff transport reduction using telecommuting or carpooling and rethinking our production process to reduce waste production.