SECURE Webinar 8: Promising the Green Economy: Conceptualizing Green Initiatives to Health Facilities in Asia and the Pacific

Series: ADB's SECURE Webinar Series

SECURE Webinar 8: Promising the Green Economy: Conceptualizing Green Initiatives to Health Facilities in Asia and the Pacific

07 July 2023

Strong, balanced, secure, sustainable, and inclusive growth in the economy is one of the major drivers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Putrajaya Vision 2040. To attain sustainable growth outcomes, APEC member countries focus on policy responses to environmental and social challenges, such as climate change, and health. To recover from the COVID-19 pandemic recovery, countries foster economic growth that benefits greater health and well-being for all people to ensure the region is resilient to pandemics and other emergencies.

Mitigating the effects of global climate change is essential in the health sector by taking steps to limit its climate footprint. Ensuring a sustainable and safe environment for health facilities is crucial to achieving universal health coverage. Green and clean health facilities are instrumental solutions to coping with climate change, and pandemics and providing sustainable health services to the community. The model of green hospitals includes conserving energy, designing green and clean buildings, generating renewable energy, reducing fuel consumption for transport, providing sustainable and clean food, preventing pollution, reducing and recycling waste, and conserving safe and clean water in health facilities. Green hospitals also contribute to the APEC Bio Circular Green (BCG) economy concept, with integrated solutions to provide a common framework for balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative, and secure growth to encourage achieving sustainable APEC outcomes1. The Green Hospital initiatives also conform with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and align with the Asian Development Bank’s Strategic Vision 2030.

During the post-COVID-19 pandemic, the awareness of sustainable climate footprint has significantly improved among ADB’s Developing Member Countries (DMCs) and the demand for green initiatives in the health sector is increasing. Despite the countries’ enthusiasm to adopt the green and clean models, the opportunity and capacity are diverse among DMCs. Singapore and Thailand have demonstrated good practices in the conceptualization and implementation of green hospitals in Southeast Asia. Thailand has adopted the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) by establishing Environment, Modernization, and Smart Services (EMS) criteria in the Kingdom’s health facilities. To foster green and clean initiatives, policy, leadership, knowledge, and resources are essential for any sustainability transformation at the public hospitals and community to take place.

This webinar aimed to share the global policy, conceptualization of green hospitals, and sharing Thailand and other countries' experiences on their “Green and Clean” initiatives in health facilities.

Program and Learning Materials: 
Date Session / Activity Presentation Material Speaker(s)
07 Jul 2023 Opening Opening Remarks and Introduction and outline of the webinar Mr. Anouj Mehta, Country Director, ADB Thailand

Mr. Kyi Thar, Moderator and TA 6767 Consultant
07 Jul 2023 Global Policy and Climate Change Initiatives on Green Hospitals: Case Study of Member States Opportunities for Building Climate Resilient and Low Carbon Sustainable Health Care Facilities
This presentation gives an overview of the opportunities and climate change initiatives for green hospitals.
Elena Villalobos Prats
07 Jul 2023 Global Policy and Climate Change Initiatives on Green Hospitals: Case Study of Member States Grean and Sustainability Initiatives In Yishun Health Campus, Singapore
This presentation gives an overview of Singapore'sexperiences and case studies on green hospital.
Donald Wai Wing Tai
07 Jul 2023 Conceptualization of Bio Circular Green Economy (BCG), Green Hospital and Mitigation of Pollution in the Community Conceptualization of Bio Circular Green Economy
This presentation gives an overview of the mitigation of pollution and conceptualization of green hospital initiatives in the community.
Nutta Taneepanichsku
07 Jul 2023 Experiences on Implementation of the Green Hospital Project Sharing Experiences on Implementation of the Green Hospital Project at District Hospital in Thailand
This presentation gives an overview ofthe experiences on the implementation of the Green Hospital Project at a district hospital in Thailand.
Jakchai Tittabut
07 Jul 2023 Discussions Reactions to the speakers: Regional Perspectives Ramon San Pascual, Health Care Without Harm

Antoine Morel, Principal Environment Specialist, South East Asia Regional Department, ADB
07 Jul 2023 Closing Way forward: Leverage Resources on Green Hospitals and Closing Remarks Dr. Eduardo Banzon, Principal Health Specialist, (SEHS), Southeast Asia Department, ADB

Disclaimer

The views expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term “country” in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.