Advancing towards Environmental Impact Assessment in Health Technology Assessment: An INAHTA 2025 Best Oral Presentation Award

Whilst the primary goal of health care systems is to prevent and cure disease, they are also major polluters, in turn contributing to the onset of disease. The healthcare sector is responsible for about 5% of the global carbon footprint, and if it were a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter on the planet. Globally, there is an increasing acknowledgement of the environmental impact that healthcare systems and health technologies have, which has led to an increasing interest amongst HTA agencies around the assessment and inclusion of environmental impact within HTA.

Last year saw the publication of the “INAHTA White Paper on Advancing Environmental Sustainability Through HTA”. HTW were involved in co-authoring this successful paper, alongside a voluntary group of 22 other HTA specialists at 15 INAHTA member agencies. The paper was presented at the HTAi 2025 annual meeting at Buenos Aires, by author, Tara Schuller, and we are incredibly pleased to report that it won the award for the Best Oral Presentation!

The aim of this paper was to advance discussion of potential readiness and the role of HTA agencies to integrate an environmental impact assessment into their work. An environmental impact assessment is part of a policy tool which aims to quantify the environmental impact of a technology. It can be an important decision-making tool around the use of health technologies, helping to identify and potentially remove comparatively environmentally harmful technologies. The paper also aimed to share knowledge throughout the HTA community, with the goal of reducing the environmental footprint of healthcare, whilst simultaneously supporting high quality and cost-effective care.

The White Paper can be accessed here: https://www.inahta.org/hta-tools-resources/eia-in-hta/