Climate Health Challenge

Launched in 2015 during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, the Health Care Climate Challenge is a Health Care Without Harm initiative that seeks to mobilize health facilities around the world to take a leadership role in addressing climate change.

Launched in 2015 during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, the Health Care Climate Challenge is a Health Care Without Harm initiative and the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals Network that seeks to mobilize health care facilities around the world to take a leadership role in addressing climate change.

This is how the Clínica Bíblica Hospital remains as the only Central American health care center that stood out in the 2020 Challenge, now called the Health Care Climate Challenge, which corresponds to a competition conducted by the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals Network, which is dedicated to reducing the ecological footprint of the health care sector. This is how our Hospital manages to obtain this recognition for the fourth consecutive year. In 2020 our Hospital has been recognized in the categories of renewable energy and reduction of greenhouse gases with the Silver seal, which is integrated to its verification of carbon neutrality and also sustained actions to reduce footprint through the use of 24 solar panels for water heating, action that translates into less carbon dioxide emissions and has allowed to maintain an estimated savings of about 7 thousand liters of liquefied petroleum gas per year. In turn, the Hospital has 228 photovoltaic panels for the production of electricity from renewable sources. The implementation of the Carbon Neutrality and energy saving program has allowed us to reduce more than 80 tons of CO2 equivalent in the last few years. Specifically, in the last 5 years our renewable energy generation has gone from 32 306 to 149 477 KWH/year, using solar panels for water heating and photovoltaic panels. In addition, our new campus in Santa Ana uses 100% LED lighting.

"Participating in this Challenge commits us to continue the efforts that we have been implementing at the Hospital for approximately 8 years. This in terms of energy saving and carbon neutrality. This recognition corresponds to the year 2019 and was awarded by the Global Green Healthy Hospitals Network in December 2020", explained Andrés Alvarado, Quality and Environment Manager of the Clínica Bíblica Hospital.

Climate health challenge - Hospital Clínica Bíblica

As part of these efforts, Clínica Bíblica Hospital also stands out for sharing its experiences in Carbon Neutrality. For example, in 2016 and 2017 the Hospital shared experiences in the 9th and 10th Seminars of Healthy Hospitals held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, being a very important forum in relation to the issues of environmental footprint reduction at the hospital level in the region. Recently, in September 2019, these experiences were also shared at the 2nd workshop on Sustainable Purchasing held by this Network, in Medellin Colombia.

Additionally, the Hospital has maintained the Carbon Neutrality Country Seal (granted by the Climate Change Directorate of the Ministry of Environment and Energy) and the Declaration of Carbon Neutrality to comply with international standards for the verification of carbon footprint inventories. These processes consider not only the national regulations for carbon neutrality according to the Costa Rican Country Program, but also the INTE-ISO-14064 standards.

In this 2020 Health Care Climate Challenge, 314 participants, representing more than 22 000 hospitals and health care organizations in 36 countries, have signed up to reduce their environmental footprint.

This new recognition awarded in 2020 has been granted geographically as follows: