April 22, 2021
Written By Mat Kendall
Aledade was founded on the belief that empowered, independent primary care is good for patients, good for doctors, and good for society. Over the past six and a half years, we’ve pushed relentlessly to fight for a future of value-based care centered on independent primary care, knowing that the health care system of tomorrow can and must be better than today’s.
With that future in mind, today we are announcing our next big step: Aledade is now a carbon neutral company, effective immediately. We’re doing this because better health and a healthier environment aren’t two distinct issues. They’re one and the same — and the time for change is now.
Climate Change is a Public Health Emergency
By the year 2100, if current emission trends continue unabated, leading researchers project that there will be an additional 1.5 million annual premature deaths across the globe attributable solely to the effects of our changing climate.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that climate change will cause more heat waves and droughts, more catastrophic weather events like hurricanes and floods, more vector-borne diseases like COVID-19, more mental health disorders, and increased food insecurity.
To make matters worse, the devastation from climate change’s causes and its consequences won’t be distributed evenly. The most vulnerable members of our society — who already shoulder much of the burden of climate change and air pollution today — will be even worse off if drastic measures to change course aren’t taken now. The disparities in health that so many of us are working to eliminate will only become more deeply entrenched.
It’s with this in mind that Aledade is undertaking these three steps to conduct our business in the most environmentally responsible way possible:
- We’re going carbon neutral. Starting now, we’re working to offset any carbon emissions we can’t reduce, and ensuring that our dollars go where they’ll have the largest impact. As our first carbon offset purchase, we’ve decided to offset all of our 2021 Q1 emissions by paying a company to find and destroy refrigerant gases, which can be tens of thousands of times more potent than other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
- We’re reducing our emission intensity. The COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot of companies’ carbon footprints by ensuring that employees weren’t traveling, using lots of energy at the office, or commuting. But as the pandemic subsides and we return to a “new normal”, we’re committing that Aledade’s work will be at least 10 percent less carbon intensive than the pre-COVID baseline. To get started, we’re paying a solar farm in North Carolina to build enough solar panels to cover all of the energy usage of our Bethesda-based and remote employees.
- We’re focusing on the big picture. We want to use our public platform to bring together other leaders in the health care industry, push them to make bold commitments on climate, and together, lobby for systemic change. And we will work with our business partners to find ways to help them reduce their carbon footprints as well — with the ultimate aim of decreasing the U.S. healthcare industry’s significant impact on climate change.
Through all of this work, we’re going to focus on the same principles that guide our work at Aledade — we’re going to make decisions based on evidence, we’re going to be transparent, and we’re going to be laser-focused on results.
Join Us!
If you’re someone who works in health care and wants to be a part of this work, let us know! You can email us at [email protected]. We’ll continue to share updates through our social media channels and our website, so stay in touch with us as we work to be part of a society that invests in a planet that’s good for patients, good for doctors, good for society, and good for generations to come.