BY UE STUDIO
Saturday, November 27, 2021 - 18:19
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The Covid-19 crisis demonstrated the importance of health care in a global way and served to make a call to action and adopt measures with which to improve the health of the planet and people. Because animal health, that of ecosystems and the health of people are connected. They depend on each other as synthesized by the One Health concept promoted by the World Health Organization. A global vision, which allows us to understand how the breakdown of the balance between the parties can have harmful consequences for our own physical and mental well-being.
Thus, for example, phenomena such as the loss of biodiversity or deforestation are directly related to 75% of new infectious diseases.
While factors such as pollution generate a direct impact on the cardiovascular and respiratory health of people.
But not all are threats to our well-being.
The connection between the health of the planet and of people also generates positive impacts on us.
This is the case of green areas.
As scientific evidence shows, living near spaces surrounded by trees and vegetation improves our physical and mental health.
Taking into account all these factors and as health specialists, at Sanitas they understand the importance of companies acting to become part of the solution to the climate crisis that threatens our planet.
The recent United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26) - held in Glasgow (United Kingdom) - has once again warned about the need and urgency of accelerating climate action so that the Paris Agreement is fulfilled. The scenario of avoiding a global rise in temperature above 1.5ºC remains more alive than ever, if we want to avoid devastating effects on life on the planet. This is why Sanitas has become one of the first healthcare companies to step up and publicly commit to being a Net Zero organization by United Nations standards. This means that it will be a carbon neutral company, both in direct emissions in 2030 and indirect in 2040, long before the objectives set by COP26 that set the horizon of carbon neutrality in 2050.
To achieve this, the company does not start from scratch. They have been working on improving the energy efficiency of their hospitals, clinics, residences and offices for more than ten years. A task with which they have already managed to reduce 70% of the emissions they generated in 2009. They have achieved this by betting on renewable energy sources, so that 100% of the electrical energy used by the company today is renewable. They have also installed photovoltaic panels in their centers that generate more than 1GWh per year for self-consumption. In addition, they have designed medical centers that incorporate highly efficient materials or have even built environmentally friendly infrastructures, such as the headquarters of the company that was the first bioclimatic building in Spain.
In recent years, they have also incorporated new tools to accelerate the path to carbon neutrality. Among them, the digitization of health services. Video consultations, medical test reports, digital consents and fully digitized customer contact points have become great allies in the decarbonization of your operations. For example, each video consultation avoids 3.1 kg of CO2 and each medical report consulted online, 1.5 kg of CO2. Thanks to this, in 2020, Sanitas avoided the emission of 6,655 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, an amount equivalent to that emitted by 1,811 homes in Spain.
In its commitment to caring for the planet, Sanitas also collaborates with other companies.
Through Eco-Disruptive, its program of open innovation and talent among employees, it detects and empowers those start-ups that propose innovative solutions in the field of sustainability and that can be applied in the world of health.
A good example of this is the winning proposal of this first edition of Ecodisruptive, which proposes sustainable medical uniforms made from recycled, regenerated or organic materials, and designed thinking that they can be used in a later use when they finish their first useful life .
Green initiatives that are health
But it is not enough to reduce the CO2 footprint, it is also necessary to act to reforest forests and create green areas in cities, given the positive effect that vegetation has on people's health. This is the idea that led the company to create a program like Healthy Cities.
For six years, Sanitas has proposed to the employees of numerous companies in the country (more than 80 in the last edition) the challenge of walking 6,000 steps a day, to promote healthy lifestyle habits and make people healthier and more resilient to disease and future pandemics. If the challenge is met, Sanitas makes a donation to different regeneration projects to create healthy and sustainable green spaces. Thanks to this program, Sanitas donated trees to the Metropolitan Forest of the Madrid City Council in February 2021, an initiative that will help create a green ring with 450,000 trees that will surround the capital. Also the result of Healthy Cities is the collaboration with WWF Spain,with whom he is launching replanting programs in the burned areas of Cortes de Pallás (Valencia) and El Garraf Park (Barcelona), two forests that when recovered will act as a brake on climate change.
But the link between green areas and health goes beyond replanting in collaboration with NGOs and public administrations.
The company is working to integrate green areas in its own facilities that generate a positive impact on the health of the users of its centers.
A good example of this are the therapeutic gardens that the residences of Sanitas Mayores have in their centers.
These gardens favor active aging by improving the mood of the elderly, reducing the feeling of loneliness and reinforcing social relationships with the rest of the companions of the residence.
With the welfare of people
Sanitas' commitment to health and well-being, included in SDG3 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, has even led them to promote health promotion programs for the population. A good example of this is the company's personalized digital prevention plans, which offer services in areas such as nutrition, psychology or personal training with which to avoid the main risk factors that cause diseases.
Also, sport plays a fundamental role in the health promotion plans that Sanitas directs to society, due to its proven contribution to people's physical and mental health. But it is also that sport plays an integrating role of the first order, hence, Sanitas and its Foundation have been promoting the practice of Inclusive Sports for more than ten years to ensure that sports practice is available to everyone, people with disabilities. and without disabilities on equal terms. A good example of what the company has achieved in this regard, has been the celebration of the first Inclusive Games in history, which took place in Madrid last October, and in which almost 200 Olympic athletes and Paralympians who had participated in the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
Made by UE Studio
This text has been developed by UE Studio, creative firm of branded content and content marketing of Unidad Editorial, for SANITAS
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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