WEHI supports action to combat climate change

As one of Australia’s leading medical research institutes, WEHI is concerned about the negative impacts of climate change on physical and mental health. These impacts are particularly felt by disenfranchised, marginalised and disadvantaged communities. They will become more profound for us, for our children and our grandchildren unless greenhouse gas emissions are curtailed.

WEHI is committed to advocating for the mitigation of global warming.

WEHI is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with our operations.

WEHI is committed to enabling research that increases the understanding of how climate change has, is and will continue to impact human health in line with our ongoing commitment to make discoveries that help people live healthier lives.

We are taking steps to identify and act on collective emissions reduction opportunities across the medical research and healthcare sectors. This is consistent with the Australian government’s National Health and Climate Strategy and the Victorian government’s emissions reduction targets.

WEHI’s actions in relation to this important issue have been driven by our first Environmental Management and Sustainability Strategy 2021-2023, consistent with our Strategic Plan 2019-2024. The Environmental Strategy was endorsed by WEHI’s Board and leadership.

WEHI is currently preparing a new Strategic Plan and Environmental Management and Sustainability Strategy. In doing so, we will continue to be guided by scientific experts on climate change, including the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

WEHI’s Environmental Management and Sustainability Strategy 2021-2023 supported a number of initiatives, including:

• Measuring WEHI’s scope 1, 2 and some scope 3 emissions¹
• Streamlining data collection to facilitate annual monitoring of WEHI’s emissions
• Developing a process to become carbon-neutral for scope 1 and scope 2 emissions while operational emissions reduction activities are being investigated and implemented
• Undertaking a waste audit and identifying opportunities to improve waste management
• Mobilising staff and students to implement behaviour-related emission reduction activities
• Building relationships with peer organisations in the Parkville Biomedical Precinct and nationally to share information and build capacity for effective action and, where appropriate, representations to suppliers, governments and funders
• Committing to purchasing all electricity from 100% renewable sources from 2025 (which will reduce our scope 2 emissions by over 90%)

In the course of implementing the Environmental Management and Sustainability Strategy 2021-2023, WEHI made adjustments to some of the specific goals it articulated.

Principally, these are:

• No further purchases of carbon offsets will be made. Instead, WEHI will focus its efforts and resources on taking actions that will directly reduce our carbon footprint, such as energy efficiency measures and the above-mentioned purchase of green electricity.
• WEHI’s reporting activities will align with government and funder requirements. We will include more information in our Annual Report as our reporting capabilities mature.

¹ Clean Energy Regulator: Emissions and energy types