You don’t have to be a practice owner to champion sustainability. And practicing in a sustainable way isn’t just about reusing, recycling and flicking light switches when you leave a room[1] [2]. Here are five ways you can champion your personal sustainable practice no matter where you work and who you work with, or for.
1. Champion prevention to reduce interventions.
Motivate patients to champion prevention to reduce their environmental footprint [2, 3]. Many of our patients are aware of their environmental impact, and some may wish to leave a smaller footprint [3]. Prevention reduces the need for interventions to mitigate upstream energy consumption such as manufacturing and transport of treatments and materials, and reduced patient journeys further mitigates carbon emissions[1].
2. Promote and provide optimal long-term interventions
Include environmental costs as a consideration when you discuss treatment options with patients [2, 4]. Opt for materials that have a track record for quality and durability. Durable treatment options reduce long-term financial burden, reduce environmental costs, and increase patient satisfaction. While the initial cost of a temporary solution appears low, long term costs include additional appointments for repairs, that result in wasted materials, resources, and clinical time, and candiminish your career satisfaction [1, 4].
3. Harness the power of collaboration
Understand the benefits of integrated care [2, 4] by involving suppliers, practice staff and patients. Maintain a good stock control system by advocating to order products in bulk to reduce transportation costs, and use materials before expiry[1].
Plan and communicate your procedures in advance to help your assistant anticipate immediate clinical need to reduce their sterilising load and waste.
Consider batching appointments for families and book long appointments for multiple treatments. As long as it’s financially viable for patients, long appointments reduce surgery turnover, sterilising loads, improves your hourly rate reduces patient visits and consequently, emissions[1, 4].
4. Strive for dental excellence
Become a lifelong learner and adapt new technologies and methods[4]. Many new technologies are designed with the environmental factors in consideration. For instance, cloud based practice software reduces paper waste and scanning technologies replace impression material.
5. Be the change…
you want to see (attributed to Mahatma Ghandhi). Research shows that our behaviours, beliefs and health outcomes are often shaped by the people close to us [5]. Essentially, we are the sum of the five closest people in our circle, and our habits and behaviours are moulded and influenced by our proximal networks [6]. And in dental practice, our networks are our colleagues, and support staff. We spend more time with our workmates, than we do with our own partners and family. So if you want to influence your fellow workers, be the change you want to see. Start incorporating these practices into your workflow, and you may be surprised the ripple effect and influence in everyone’s behaviour[1].
You don’t have to be a practice owner to champion sustainability. Remember to promote the environmental benefits of prevention, deliver durable dental interventions, unite to mitigate waste, adapt evidence-based sustainable practices and champion sustainability in your practice.
