Inevitable Ep 75: Gary Cohen, President & Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm
Today's guest is Gary Cohen, President & Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm.
Gary has been a pioneer in the environmental health movement for thirty years. Cohen is President and Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth. He was also instrumental in bringing together the NGOs and hospital systems that formed the Healthier Hospitals Initiative. All three were created to transform the health care sector to be environmentally sustainable and serve as anchor institutions to support environmental health in their communities.
Gary was Executive Director of the Environmental Health Fund for many years. He has helped build coalitions and networks globally to address the environmental health impacts related to toxic chemical exposure and climate change.
Gary is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, India, which has been working for over 25 years to heal people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy and to fight for environmental cleanup in Bhopal. He is also on the Boards of the American Sustainable Business Council, Health Leads and Coming Clean.
He has received numerous recognitions for his achievements, including: The MacArthur Foundation’s Fellows Award (2015), the White House’s Champion of Change Award for Public Health and Climate Change (2013), the Huffington Post’s Game Changer Award for Health (2012), the Frank Hatch Award for Enlightened Public Service (2007), and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2006).
In today’s episode, we cover:
- Overview of Health Care Without Harm and origin story
- Gary's background and path leading up to it
- Their initial starting point and strategy
- Progress to-date
- Team composition
- How they measure success
- How decarbonization fits in
- Biggest levers to bring about decarbonization of health care
- Barriers impeding progress
- Changes that would be most impactful
- How Gary would allocate $100B to maximize its impact on the problem
- How you and I can help
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
- Health Care Without Harm: https://noharm.org/
- Practice Greenhealth: https://practicegreenhealth.org/
- United Nations Development Programme: https://www.undp.org/
- International Monetary Fund: https://www.imf.org/external/index.htm
- Health care energy impact calculator: http://www.eichealth.org/
- World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant