ZEF Project Details

KLIOL – Climate Change mitigation in Hospitals by Optimizing Supply Chains

Keywords

Climate change mitigation, health co-benefits, facility-based nutrition intervention, hospitals

Countries

Germany

Summary

The project 'Climate Change mitigation in Hospitals by Optimizing Supply Chains' (KliOL) aims to create a greenhouse gas calculator for hospitals with a special focus on greenhouse gas emissions from supply chains ("Scope 3" emissions) using Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) as an example. In parallel, exemplary climate change measures will be implemented at the UKHD and evaluated with regard to their impact on the greenhouse gas balance, financial aspects and possible health effects. Ina Danquah and her team have developed a cafeteria-based sustainable diet intervention and identified the impacts on dietary practices, physical and mental wellbeing, greenhouse gas emissions, and costs of the diet.

Methodology

In this quasi-experiment, plant-based menus and educational material on sustainable diets were provided in the largest cafeteria of a German hospital for 3 months. Regular customers (>1/week) in this cafeteria and in a cafeteria without the intervention completed a questionnaire about their socio-demographic and dietary characteristics before and after the intervention period. We also estimated greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) from food intake by Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) and documented the opportunity costs, staff costs, and monetary costs of the implementation. Difference-in-differences approaches were used to define the effects on sustainable dietary practice, wellbeing, GHGE, and costs.

Main Cooperation Partners

Dr. Alina Herrmann, Heidelberg Institute for Global Health (HIGH), Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Dr. Bernd Franke, Institute for Energy and Environment Research (ifeu), Heidelberg, Germany

Main Funding Partners