Empowering healthcare systems with clear, data-driven pathways to reach zero-emissions targets through rigorous environmental accounting.
Healthcare is a substantial but insufficiently characterized source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Canada has committed to achieving net-zero healthcare emissions by 2050, yet no national mechanism currently exists to track progress transparently across jurisdictions.
Healthcare emissions are not currently reported as a distinct sector within Canada’s official greenhouse gas inventory, limiting transparent sector-level attribution and accountability.
The last comprehensive national estimate is now more than a decade old, leaving an evidence gap that limits the ability of provincial health systems to establish baselines and identify emissions hotspots.
Building a scalable national infrastructure for healthcare emissions accounting.
Integrating healthcare expenditure, procurement, operational, and activity data across multiple levels of the health system.
Tracking longitudinal emissions trends across provinces, territories, healthcare sectors, and population groups.
Generating disaggregated emissions estimates by jurisdiction, healthcare service category, and system performance indicators.
Reconciling top-down and bottom-up accounting methodologies, and mapping results to the national inventory.
CARE combines environmentally extended input–output (EEIO) modelling with process-based life cycle assessment (LCA) to estimate direct and indirect healthcare emissions across Canada.
The framework integrates provincial healthcare expenditure data with process-based activity data sourced from industry partners, health authorities, and government datasets to improve model granularity and accuracy.
Developing high-resolution national and provincial emissions baselines covering healthcare activities from 2016–2026.
Projecting healthcare emissions trajectories to 2030 and 2050 under Paris-aligned decarbonization pathways.
Disaggregating estimates by demographics, geography, utilization patterns, and disease burden.
Translating emissions data into dashboards and benchmarking tools for administrators and policy-makers.
We are seeking collaboration with health authorities, ministries, healthcare organizations, procurement agencies, Indigenous organizations, and academic partners interested in advancing emissions measurement in Canada.
To express interest or discuss partnership opportunities, please contact:
Daniel.Rainham@dal.ca