According to the Lancet, climate change is the biggest threat to global health in the 21st century. Meanwhile, healthcare has a very significant carbon footprint world-wide, especially surgery. As YO-IFOS we would like to stimulate more sustainable ENT healthcare worldwide and we believe our large international network of motivated young otorhinolaryngologists can facilitate this. The goals of our committee are:
- To support international collaboration in the field of sustainability by creating an international network of green ambassadors, with an ambassador in every country. This will facilitate the journey towards sustainable ENT healthcare by sharing best practices, protocols, research findings, challenges faced etc.
- To set up projects in different focus areas, such as awareness, education, research and implementation (in collaboration ofcourse with the other YO-IFOS committees).
- To organize online webinars on the topic.
- To embed sustainabiltiy in the scientific programme of the next IFOS-conference.
- To decrease the carbon footprint of the next IFOS-conference, eventually aiming for a net-zero conference.
- and ultimately... to ensure that sustainability is in everyones DNA and incorporated in many of the decisions we make, leading to a generation of green ENT surgeons!
