Cool Food Pledge in healthcare
Contact: Tibo Uyttersprot
HCWH Europe is partnering with the World Resources Institute (WRI) to bring their Cool Food Pledge to healthcare facilities across Europe. This collaboration aims to promote plant-centred food in healthcare to protect both patients and the planet.
Cool Food Pledge
The Cool Food Pledge helps dining facilities – from hotels and restaurants to universities, schools, hospitals, and workplace cafeterias – cut their food-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by shifting towards more plant-rich diets.
A quarter of all GHG emissions come from food production. By simply changing what we eat, we can make a difference to our climate.
The Cool Food Pledge helps members:
- Pledge their support for a science-based reduction target for diet-related GHG emissions
- Calculate the emissions from supplied food
- Develop the best plan to bring about change
- Promote their success
The collective ambition of all Cool Food Pledge signatories is to reduce GHG emissions associated with the food they provide by 25% by 2030 relative to 2015, a level of ambition in line with limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Cool Food Pledge signatories
There are currently 48 US healthcare facilities, representing 50 million meals a year, that have signed the Cool Food Pledge. Based on a 2015 baseline, GHG emissions associated with food were reduced by 7% per plate in healthcare.
We are currently looking for European healthcare facilities to sign on to the pledge and reduce the climate impact of food to improve human health. Participating hospitals will receive detailed feedback on their food-related emissions, as well as ideas and best practices to reduce these emissions.
