In this open access TCAM paper Dr. Koytcheva et. al describe their review of the literature to identify research relevant to environmental sustainability in veterinary clinics. Despite using 8 databases, their search yielded only a handful of articles, 1 on veterinary anesthesia and 2 on production animal medicine. A similar search of the human healthcare literature yielded more than 15x that number of scientific articles, quite the disconnect!
While the authors highlight several opportunities for research in this space that would support veterinary teams to meet their sustainability goals, they also pulled key elements from the human literature that are applicable to veterinary medicine. Five themes, represented here as the leaves on a tree, were identified: energy, water, waste, procurement and transportation. The authors suggest ways to address each of these through both behavioral (eg. turning off equipment when not in use) and physical (eg. outlet timers) mechanisms. They also highlight the different levels (individual, group, organizational) at which sustainable changes can be made, visualized here as the intertwining roots of the tree. The authors propose that this framework my be broadly adaptable to a variety of veterinary clinical practices to aid in the development, and achievement, of their sustainability goals.
