Shaping a sustainable future: health care and the climate crisis (hybrid)
28 Aug 2025, 17:30 - 20:00
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With health and care services a major contributor to the climate crisis, including emissions, energy use, consumables and resources, there are clear health and climate benefits of action to reduce the effects. Health professionals have a significant role to play. Join our panel to discover measures to tackle climate change and explore planetary health.
Our speaker panel includes:
- Dr Sandy Robertson, Co-Clinical Lead for GreenED and Chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Environmental Specialist Interest Group, about the initiative on greener emergency departments, GreenED, and the green accreditation framework for Emergency Departments that has been running in NHS Lothian and NHS Fife, including how this contributes to net zero targets and creates financial savings for emergency departments while maintaining or improving patient care.
- Xiru Li on empowering nurses to action sustainable changes from the front lines in cancer care in Canada. Xiru (see-roo) Li is a Canadian nurse with a decade of experience in paediatric oncology and community nursing. As a settler of colour, she grew up on the traditional unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Xiru understands Planetary Health as informed by Traditional and Indigenous knowledge systems, and approaches this discipline with deep humility for the limitations of Western epistemologies. Xiru is completing her MSc in Planetary Health at the University of Edinburgh, where her research seeks to understand nursing faculty’s perceptions of planetary health, and attitudes towards embedding planetary health concepts into nursing curricula. Currently, Xiru is working with the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment to develop a Planetary Health Fellowship program.
- Kurnia Yuliandari, on ‘Uncover nurses’ environmentally sustainable practices in perioperative care in Indonesia. Kurnia is an Indonesian nurse and has been working as a lecturer with School of Nursing Universitas Gadjah Mada. Drawing from her experience in responding to climate related disasters in Indonesia, she has developed an immense interest in the impact of climate change on health care delivery and health care sustainability in limited resource facilities. She is currently completing her PhD project at the Nursing Studies, University of Edinburgh, where her research focuses on exploring the mechanism of nurses’ environmentally sustainable practices in perioperative settings. This research is an initial project to develop and integrate climate resilient and sustainable health care concepts and practices into nursing education and training curricula.
Joining us in person? Drop in activities at the exhibition launch include:
- Show and Tell showcasing nursing history through objects from the RCN Archives.
- Add your reflections on climate change to our creative question panel.
If you are joining online you will need access to the internet via a computer or smart phone.
This event is part of the event series accompanying the ‘You Mean the World: Nursing in a climate crisis’ exhibition which explores the history of air pollution and of recycling and re-use in nursing and shows how talented nursing teams are taking climate action today – from green social prescribing to developing sustainable nursing tools. The exhibition is open for visitors Mondays to Thursdays 10 – 4pm.
This event is open to all.
If you have any questions or accessibility needs, please contact us on scotland.library@rcn.org.uk or 0131 662 6163.
Read the full terms and conditions for our events.
Library Team
scotland.library@rcn.org.uk
0131 662 6163
RCN Scotland Headquarters (Edinburgh)
42 South Oswald Road
Edinburgh
EH9 2HH
2.5 miles from Edinburgh Waverley Station
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Page last updated - 25/06/2025
