NYU Langone Health detailed how it has updated its building construction practices and collaborated with federal organizations to cut back on direct and indirect carbon emissions in the medical center’s 2024 sustainability report.
The report was prepared by NYU Langone’s Real Estate Development and Facilities Department, which leads initiatives to manage infrastructure development for the medical center’s facilities across the country. This year, the department published its updated guidelines for architects and engineers to design and renovate NYU Langone’s facilities with efficiency and quality goals in mind.
By next year, the medical center aims to see a 50% reduction in building-based carbon emissions for its properties in New York City, after it saw a 40% reduction by the end of 2023. It is also the first time NYU Langone compiled a holistic inventory of its Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions, which it reduced by 16% at the end of last year and promised to cut back by 50% in 2030. Scope 1 regards direct carbon emissions from controlled resources, such as fossil fuels, vehicles and greenhouse gas leaks, while Scope 2 involves emissions from purchased energy like electricity and steam.
Paul Schwabacher, the senior vice president of facilities management at NYU Langone, said that the medical center is working to implement measures to track Scope 3 emissions — which includes all other indirect emissions not in Scope 2, such as those generated by waste and business travel — 50% to 75% of which were greenhouse gases.
“This is a major step towards tracking and meeting our carbon neutrality goal and to developing our decarbonization roadmap,” Schwabacher said in a statement to WSN. “Sharing the health system’s progress in an annual report enables us to be transparent about how we are meeting our goals and to promote industry knowledge-sharing that may move the health care sector forward in its climate progress.”
The report also detailed NYU Langone’s initiatives to mitigate these emissions, including a 2023 project targeting Scope 1 emissions to upgrade gasoline-dependent ambulances with lithium-ion batteries. The Orthopedic Hospital at NYU Langone also recently implemented updated recycling infrastructure in operating rooms and post-anasthesia care units in an effort to prevent waste from surgery procedures from entering landfills.
Schwabacher said that the medical center’s initiatives for controlling direct and indirect emissions support NYU Langone’s commitments to the federal Health and Human Services Health Sector Pledge in 2022 — which includes achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and conducting a full greenhouse gas inventory — and to the U.S. Health Care Climate Council, which has required the center to be transparent about its climate goals since it became a member in 2020.
This year’s report was the first to include a section on “Climate & Health,” addressing the health care industry’s role in contributing to carbon emissions and the impact of climate change on areas such as weather patterns, air and water quality and food insecurity. Schwabacher said that in NYU Langone’s 2025 sustainability report, it will detail its collaboration with the Department of Population Health to integrate climate-driven impacts into our community health needs assessment process.
“It’s important that we discuss how climate may influence health, in both the short and long term, and share our unique perspectives as a health care provider on the front lines,” Schwabacher said. “Climate change may exacerbate the diseases and negative health outcomes most relevant to NYU Langone Health and its patient populations.”
NYU Langone’s practices toward sustainability goals align with the entire university’s aims to halve building emissions by 2025, following its 30% reduction in 2012. This semester, the university has launched several initiatives toward its goal of meeting carbon neutrality by 2040, such as including plant-based dining hall options and renovating Rubin Hall.
Contact Liyana Illyas at [email protected].
