Intensive care unit carbon footprint: A bibliometric and document content analysis

Background

Sustainable low-carbon health systems are among the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) goals. The literature states that 4.9% of greenhouse gas emissions originate from the health sector.

Aims

This study aimed to quantify and visualize trends, citations, key terms and countries of publications about the carbon footprint of intensive care and review their contents.

Study design

A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 14 articles selected by searching the SCOPUS database using the keywords ‘Environmental sustainability’, ‘Environmental footprint’, ‘Carbon footprint’ and ‘Intensive care unit’. MS Excel was used to create graphs, and VOSviewer was used to perform network analysis. Content analysis methods were used to describe the details in each document.

Results

Most articles on intensive care carbon footprint and environmental sustainability were published in 2023 (n = 7, 47%), with the first publication in 2014. The article ‘Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care’, from the British Journal of Anaesthesia, was the most cited, with 166 citations. The carbon footprinting studies were conducted in the United Kingdom, Australia, United States and the Netherlands.

Conclusion

Minimizing electricity usage and waste generation (reducing, reusing and recycling more) can reduce the carbon footprint of intensive care. The number of studies on the subject was limited, and although none were specifically about nurses, sustainability and environmental impact are relevant topics for all intensive care staff.