Anesthesia and the environment
The healthcare system is one of the country's largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and anesthesia accounts for far more of it than one might imagine.
At Mensana, we made a clear choice: the approaches we practice for your comfort are also the ones that weigh least on the planet. Care and sustainability are not two separate fights, they are the same one.
Did you know?
Desflurane, a volatile anesthetic gas commonly used to maintain general anesthesia, has a lifespan of 14 years in the atmosphere and a global warming potential 2,540 times greater than that of CO₂.
Using desflurane as an anesthetic agent during a 7-hour day contributes to global warming equivalent to driving a vehicle for 16,000 kilometers.
“In the context of the current climate crisis, inhaled anesthetic agents should be abandoned as the main method of maintaining general anesthesia.”
Abandoning volatile anesthetic agents, and favoring regional anesthesia over general anesthesia whenever possible: these are two turning points Dr. Desroches took more than fifteen years ago long before the climate emergency became a public issue. Making choices for our patients based on scientific evidence is the very foundation of Mensana.
Using total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) rather than volatile agents like desflurane reduces the procedure's greenhouse gas emissions by 15 to 40 times. Avoiding general anesthesia altogether in favor of regional anesthesia reduces them further by 5 to 10 times again. In other words: an informed anesthetic choice can reduce a surgery's footprint by a factor of a hundred or more. These are precisely the choices we make, surgery after surgery.
These choices require no trade-off: the very approaches that lighten the operating room's footprint also reduce your nausea, your exposure to opioids, and your recovery time. The most sustainable option is often, quite simply, the best one for you.
Sustainability in the operating room is not an abstract virtue, it is precise decisions taken at three levels. At Mensana, we advance on all three simultaneously.
Waste management in the OR, in collaboration with the clinics, rests on three complementary levers: optimization of sorting protocols, recycling of materials where possible, and above all source reduction, thinking, before every procedure, about what can be avoided without compromising safety.
The choice of anesthetic agent is the most impactful lever anesthesia teams have on their carbon footprint. It is a lever we act on at every surgery where possible, favoring low-emission approaches.
A green OR is one where respect for the environment becomes a value shared by the whole team, anesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses, orderlies, managers. At Mensana, this happens through continuous training, sharing practices between partner clinics, and constant dialogue with surgical teams to progressively integrate sustainable practices into their protocols.
Undergoing surgery is often about caring for your health to enjoy a better future for yourself, for those you love. With Mensana, this gesture can also be aligned with the health of the planet. The anesthesia approaches we favor for your comfort, regional anesthesia, intravenous anesthesia without volatile agents are precisely the ones that weigh least on the planet. In other words: choosing Mensana means you don't have to choose between caring for yourself and acting for the environment.
Regulatory and reputational pressure around healthcare sustainability is increasing every year. Patients ask the question. Media pays attention. Accrediting bodies are beginning to integrate environmental criteria into their evaluations. By partnering with Mensana, you integrate into your practice protocols already recognized for their low footprint without changing care quality, and often strengthening it. It is a positioning your teams can embrace with pride, and that your patients can feel at every stage.
In a surgical clinic, the environmental footprint is shared by everyone involved. But sustainability is also about the quality of the relationships we build with our teams, our patients, and our clinics: a respectful work environment is, in its own way, a form of sustainability too.
Mensana currently supports orthopedic and esthetic surgeries with a shared standard: preparing every patient with care, for a safer, more comfortable and more predictable experience.
