Sustainability in dentistry

The challenge

Climate change is the biggest health threat of our century. It drives disease, worsens inequalities, and puts pressure on health systems everywhere.

Healthcare is responsible for approximately 4-5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and oral healthcare is a contributor. This impact comes from:

• Energy use: heating water and buildings
• Emissions: incinerating clinical waste, anaesthetic gases, and CO2 emissions from staff and patient travel
• Waste: domestic waste, paper, and the wider procurement and manufacturing processes.

The solution

The best way to make dentistry more sustainable is to prevent oral disease. Fewer interventions and operative treatments mean less energy use and less waste.

Government action is key. Policies that cut sugar consumption, tackle antimicrobial resistance, and reform NHS contracts to focus on prevention will help dentistry reduce its environmental footprint and improve health.

Prevention is fundamental to sustainability, but actions at an individual and practice level can drive meaningful change and have a positive environmental impact. This includes changes such as adopting a digital workflow to reduce paper waste, ensuring that your patient care records and x-rays are digital. You could also install motion sensors to help reduce your energy consumption, as well as following appropriate waste disposal guidelines and encouraging recycling within your practice.

Our sustainability in dentistry advice contains further information on how you can make a difference in your practice.

Our actions

We are working to make sustainability a part of everyday dentistry. We have developed a sustainability in dentistry policy statement which outlines the actions we are calling for and have already taken:

• NHS contract reform with a focus on prevention
• Measures to tackle the population’s sugar consumption
• Supporting the phase down of dental amalgam
• Working nationally and internationally on antimicrobial resistance
• A review of HTM 01-05 guidance to consider sustainable approaches
• We have signed the FDI Pledge for Sustainable Oral Healthcare and joined the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change and the UK One Health Co-ordination Group.

As an organisation, we are committed to embedding sustainable approaches in how we work:

• We stopped producing plastic membership cards in March 2020, long before many other organisations
• The majority of our committee meetings are held online to reduce carbon emissions from travel and to make the meetings more inclusive
• Members can opt out of receiving the BDJ in print and we are constantly reviewing whether print is the best format across all departments.

Tools and support for members

We have brought together practical tools and advice for members who want to make their practices more sustainable:

• Sustainability in dentistry advice
• Our library carries e-books, journals, and sustainability resources
• The FDI World Dental Federation supports ethical and resource-efficient practices with sustainability in dentistry information
• Our Good Practice case study with Westleigh Dental Care, exploring the impact simple changes have had to make their practice greener
• Coming soon: A sustainability in dentistry engagement course exclusively for Good Practice members alongside downloadable resources in our Good Practice members area.