Assessment of Environmental Sustainability in Health Care Organizations

María Carmen Carnero
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María Carmen Carnero: Technical School of Industrial Engineering, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Avda. Camilo José Cela s/n, Ciudad Real 13071, Spain

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Healthcare organizations should set a standard in corporate social responsibility and encourage environmental sustainability, since protection of the environment implies the development of preventive measures in healthcare. Environmental concern has traditionally focused on manufacturing plants. However, a Health Care Organization (HCO) is the only type of company which generates all existing classes of waste, and 20% is dangerous, being infectious, toxic or radioactive in nature. Despite the extensive literature analysing environmental matters, there is no objective model for assessing the environmental sustainability of HCOs in such a way that the results may be compared over time for an organization, and between different organizations, to give a comparison or benchmarking tool for HCOs. This paper presents a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis model integrating a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and utility theory, to evaluate environmental sustainability in HCOs. The model uses criteria assessed as a function of the number of annual treatments undertaken. The model has been tested in two HCOs of very different sizes.

Keywords: environmental sustainability; health care organizations; multi-criteria techniques (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:7:p:8270-8291:d:51816

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