Climate change and environmental degradation are increasingly recognized as major threats to human health, requiring an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors, including healthcare. Dentistry contributes to these impacts through travel, purchases, energy consumption, and waste generation. Recent life-cycle assessments estimate that the annual carbon footprint of an average dental practice has risen from 27 to 35 metric tons of CO₂e, with staff and patient travel accounting for the primary sources of emissions. The environmental impact of oral health care is also increasing as the prevalence of diseases and the need for treatment rise, demonstrating that preventable oral diseases generate significant carbon emissions and waste over the long term.
To promote more sustainable practices, researchers and professionals have developed practical tools to measure and monitor environmental impacts in dentistry. Life-cycle assessment methodologies and hybrid carbon accounting approaches now enable dental practices to estimate emissions related to travel, supply chains, waste, and water and energy consumption.
Achieving sustainable dentistry requires a prevention-focused, systems-based strategy. Reducing preventable oral diseases can lower the demand for treatments, energy consumption, and waste generation throughout the supply chain. Dental practices can also reduce their emissions by promoting low-carbon modes of transportation, improving waste management, regularly measuring their emissions, and incorporating sustainability into their procurement and operational decisions.
This paper introduces a specialised carbon calculator for dental practices to compute and monitor their carbon footprints (CFPs). The carbon calculator is developed using recent carbon modelling, utilising methodologies and data from estimating the average NHS dental practice’s CFP.
