Five Ways the ISN is Advancing Sustainable Kidney Care
The ISN recognizes the urgent need for sustainable kidney care that ensures environmental responsibility and long-term viability. From fostering innovation in low-resource settings to building partnerships for green solutions, here are five key ways the ISN is advancing sustainable kidney care worldwide
- Leading the GREEN-K initiative
The ISN-led Global Environmental Evolution in Nephrology and Kidney Care – GREEN-K initiative – calls on the development of climate-resilient kidney care systems that function through accountable, sustainable, low-carbon health care and proposes a pathway to achieve this goal through a global, collaborative, and inclusive multidisciplinary working group to benefit both patients and healthcare systems.
- Promoting sustainable dialysis practices
As part of its collaboration plan with the World Health Organization, the ISN developed the “ISN Framework for Developing Dialysis Programs in Low-resource Settings: A Practical Guide for Sustainable Kidney Care Strategies.”
This framework promotes sustainable care by fostering resource-sensitive strategies that address the environmental and economic challenges of providing kidney care in low-resource settings.
- Fostering global partnerships for green innovation
The ISN recently partnered with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH). By uniting their expertise, the CSH and the ISN aim to compile and share critical educational materials and case studies, promoting best practices in sustainable kidney care. This collaboration will strive to ensure kidney care services globally can adopt and maintain environmentally sustainable practices.
- Supporting ISN Emerging Leaders’ projects
Since forming in 2022, the ISN Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) cohort 2 members have been working on initiatives aimed at reducing the environmental impact of kidney healthcare, including:
- An opinion piece, “Climate Change, Kidney Health, and Environmentally Sustainable Kidney Care,” published in the Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease
- “Green Nephrology: A Series of Mini-Reviews on Minimizing the Environmental Impact of Kidney Health Care” in collaboration with Kidney International®
- A survey to help identify practice and research priorities in sustainable kidney care
- Developing a toolkit for sustainable practices
- Conducting a scoping review on the subject
- Developing educational resources
The ISN Academy offers resources that guide the kidney care community in adopting sustainable practices. These include sessions from WCN’24, such as “Environmental Approaches for Improving Kidney Care,” which explores innovative methods like dialysis PVC recycling. In addition, the ELP session addresses the kidney care community’s shared responsibility in transitioning to environmentally sustainable global kidney care.
The ISN invites its members, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and industry leaders to leverage these resources and join us in advancing these critical efforts for a sustainable future in kidney care. Join or renew your ISN membership.
