About Operational Levers
Operational levers offer healthcare organizations practical ways to improve health outcomes while reducing environmental impacts and strengthening system resilience. Growing pressures from climate change, ecological degradation, waste generation, and resource-intensive care models highlight the need to rethink how healthcare delivers value across people, place, and planet.
Key approaches include improving healthcare waste management through better segregation, reduction, reuse, recycling, and reprocessing practices; adopting a reusables-first approach that prioritizes clinically appropriate reusable products over single-use alternatives; embedding sustainability, equity, Indigenous reconciliation, and long-term value into procurement decisions; expanding virtual care to reduce unnecessary travel and improve access; and redesigning food infrastructures around planetary health principles that support patient recovery, staff well-being, food sovereignty, and sustainable food systems.
Achieving meaningful change requires aligning organizational goals, policies, purchasing decisions, infrastructure, and care delivery models. Success depends on leadership commitment, staff engagement, collaboration with suppliers and community partners, evidence-informed decision-making, and integration of sustainability into everyday operations. Together, these operational levers enable healthcare organizations to reduce emissions and waste, strengthen supply chain resilience, improve equity and access, and deliver safer, higher-value care for current and future generations.
CASCADES playbooks and supporting resources bring together evidence-informed tools to help healthcare organizations implement sustainable operational practices across care delivery and support services. These resources provide practical guidance on healthcare waste management, reusables-first procurement, sustainable purchasing, virtual care, and food infrastructures, supporting teams to identify opportunities, implement change, measure impact, and scale successful initiatives. They are designed to help organizations embed sustainability into everyday operations while advancing quality, safety, equity, and system resilience.
Implementation Resources for Operational Levers
Webinars
Reusables First: Prioritizing reusables in Canadian healthcare settings
This webinar explains the “reusables first” approach to sustainable procurement, which prioritizes reusable products and devices over single-use disposables whenever clinically safe to do so. It highlights how healthcare procurement can help reduce the sector’s environmental impact by decarbonizing supply chains and adopting more sustainable practices to support planetary health and climate mitigation. The session features healthcare professionals from British Columbia and Ontario who share their experience implementing reusable-first strategies in clinical settings and discuss practical opportunities for broader adoption across the health system.
Reusables in Quebec healthcare: Between research and action
This webinar explores the growing movement in Quebec to adopt reusable products and devices as a strategy for advancing sustainability in health care. It explains how shifting from single-use disposable products to reusable alternatives can reduce resource extraction, waste, and pollution while improving supply chain resilience and potentially lowering long-term costs. The discussion features Quebec-based researchers and healthcare professionals sharing insights on the environmental and financial differences between reusable and single-use products, as well as barriers, facilitators, and real-world experiences implementing this transition in health care facilities.
Collaborating with IPAC to advance sustainability and reusables
This webinar focuses on infection prevention and control (IPAC) strategies related to reusable medical devices and equipment as part of the “reusable first” webinar series. Experts discuss how proper cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization are essential to maintaining patient safety while reducing environmental waste. The session emphasizes the importance of clear protocols, staff training, and collaboration between infection control and sustainability teams to support safe reuse practices in health care settings.
Lessons Learned from Unsuccessful Projects
This webinar, the fourth presentation in the “Reusables First” series, explores lessons learned from unsuccessful attempts to implement reusable products in healthcare settings. It highlights challenges such as increased workload, logistical complexity, and difficulty meeting staff needs. Speakers present case studies including reusable metal spoons, zero-waste yogurt containers, and reusable surgical textiles. Across organizations, common barriers included delays, loss of momentum, inconsistent stakeholder buy-in, and the lack of early cost analysis. The session emphasizes that sharing failures is important for helping other sustainability leaders avoid similar pitfalls and improve future implementation of reusable healthcare practices.