Impact of urban mobility on carbon footprint in healthcare centers in Extremadura (Spain)

Abstract

Users’ journeys to healthcare centers generate high greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere. The aim of this work is to calculate the carbon footprint generated by these trips, considering different means of transport and average distances traveled. For this purpose, data corresponding to six rural healthcare centers in Extremadura (Spain), which provide health services to less than 15,000 inhabitants, were collected. Buildings that have been considered had a built-up area between 1,328 and 3,192 m² and staff’s size ranged from 14 to 38. An average of 400 people was surveyed daily at each healthcare center for 25 random days over one year. Average results are 12.93 kg CO₂eq/inhabitant, 50.52 kg CO₂eq/m², 2.97 kg CO₂eq/user and 1.08 tCO₂eq/worker. Equations for estimating GHG emissions in terms of functional parameters of the healthcare centers were also defined. The transportation-to-healthcare-centers breakdown entails travel by foot (33.5%), by single car (40.4%), by shared car (25.1%) and alternative vehicles (less than 1%). Moreover, it was found that sharing vehicles reduce average annual emissions by 20.5%. Finally, savings obtained in different scenarios increasing pedestrian were analyzed. This study allows to identify opportunities to reduce these GHG emissions, which lead to a lower environmental impact of health activity and is useful to calculate carbon footprint due to the operation of a healthcare center.

Keywords:

• Carbon footprint
• healthcare engineering
• sustainable transport
• urban mobility

Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out in the framework of the project MESOVIEX. Also, the authors wish to acknowledge to the European Regional Development Fund for the financial support provided through Research Projects GR18029 linked to the VI Regional Plan for Research, Technical Development and Innovation from the Regional Government of Extremadura (2017–2020).