Climate Change Toolkit

Resources to help reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in your practice.

Physicians can play a substantial role in addressing climate change by advocating for climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and educating themselves about climate change and how it affects public and individual health, and the potential health threats it may pose to their community. 

To learn more about how climate change affects health, see Climate Change and Health: A Position Paper of the American College of Physicians. The paper lays out the evidence of how our changing planet has impacted, is impacting and will continue to impact human health.

ACP has developed a Climate Change and Health Action Plan to help our members take initiative. The Action Plan includes: 

• Overview - An introductory document, "How to Use the Climate Change Action Plan," that provides background on the project, links to general resources, and describes the components of the Action Plan toolkit.
• PowerPoint presentation - This can be used for chapter presentations, grand rounds, and other educational opportunities. It explains climate change, how it affects health, regional impacts, mitigation and adaptation, and how the health care sector can become more environmentally sustainable.
• Regional Talking Points - These brief U.S.-specific talking points provide guidance on how to talk about how climate change impacts health in each region of the United States and the co-benefits of taking action. 
  • Alaska
  • Northwest
  • Southeast
  • Southwest
  • Northeast
  • Midwest
  • Great Plains
  • Hawaii
• Patient FACTS - This easy-to-understand patient education resource explains how climate change can affect health and gives examples of what patients can do to reduce their impact on the environment.
• Greening Your Chapter - This toolkit suggests ways that ACP chapters can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, decrease waste, promote healthy food and activity, and advocate in U.S. and global communities for environmentally friendly policies.
• "Greening the Health Care Sector" documents - The health care sector uses a massive amount of energy and is responsible for millions of tons of waste a year. These documents provide guidance on how physicians, their colleagues and staffs can take action to curb climate change and make their practices more environmentally sustainable.
  • Why Green Your Health Care Facility
  • Greening the Physician Office
  • Energy Management
  • Built Environment
  • Waste
  • Transportation
  • Healthy Food
• Document Collection - A single PDF file with the Overview, Talking Points, Patient FACTS, and Greening the Health Care Sector documents.
• Other Resources
  • Sustainable Initiatives to Guide Healthcare Transformation (SIGHT): Recommendations on Sustainable Healthcare in New Jersey - A report from ACP's New Jersey Chapter on how health care systems can mitigate and adapt to climate change.
  • Declaration on Climate Change and Health - ACP has joined a number of medical, public health, and patient advocacy organizations to call for action to address climate change.
  • "Medical Alert! Climate Change is Harming Our Health" report - This report from the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, of which ACP is a member, outlines the health impacts of climate change.
  • Climate, Health and Equity: A Dozen Questions Every Candidate Must Answer - This resource from the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health provides questions for political candidates on how they plan to address climate change. (Note: this advocacy document was developed by an ACP affiliate; specific policy recommendations may not be endorsed by ACP)