The
Problem

The manufacture of virgin anaesthetic agents and their eventual release as waste volatile gases is highly damaging to the environment and contributes significantly to the total carbon footprint of healthcare.

A huge proportion of the anaesthetic gas that is delivered to a patient during an operation is not fully metabolised and is vented into the atmosphere after it is exhaled. These gases have long atmospheric lifetimes, meaning they continue to impact the climate for extended periods after release, and contribute to global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The World Health Organisation has listed the ‘World Climate Crisis’ as the most significant health challenge we face, with air pollution alone killing an estimated seven million people annually.¹

5%

The healthcare industry is the cause of 4-5% of all global CO₂ equivalent emissions.²

3%

3% of healthcare CO₂ equivalent emissions are caused by volatile anaesthetic gases.³

3M

Over 3,000,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions are released from volatile anaesthetic gases every year.⁴

95%

Patients exhale 95% of anaesthetic agents into the atmosphere as waste gas.⁵

313

It is estimated that 313 million surgical procedures are performed across the globe, every year.⁶

22%

Approximately one fifth of operating department CO₂ equivalent emissions are caused by anaesthetic gases.⁷

Global Warming Potential

Once exhaled into the atmosphere, waste volatile anaesthetic agents stay around for a long time and have high tropospheric lifetimes and subsequently high global warming potentials (GWP).

GWP is a measure of the relative contribution of mass of inhalational anaesthetic agents to an equivalent mass of carbon dioxide and is the most recognised method in anaesthesia to describe the relative contribution of a greenhouse gas towards global warming.

Over a 20-year period (GWP 20), volatile anaesthetic gases sevoflurane, isoflurane and desflurane have an impact of 508³, 1401 and 3714⁸ times that of carbon dioxide, respectively.

Carbon Footprint Of Volatile Anaesthetic Agents

Every hospital and healthcare setting has an impact on our environment. SageTech Medical offers organisations a bespoke carbon savings report based on your actual volatile agent usage. This report uses the information below to calculate the amount of CO₂e our proprietary technology is estimated to save your organisation.