Greener Trials: Building the evidence base to improve the environmental sustainability of healthcare and healthcare research

A coordinated, interdisciplinary, open science approach to quantifying and reducing the carbon footprint of clinical trials is proposed. Researchers are recognising the imperative to reduce the environmental impact of their studies, but need accessible, appropriate resources to facilitate this. Public and commercial sector organisations have collaborated to develop a common method for footprinting trials. However, differences between sectors in how trials are governed, funded and managed means we need to gather more data, using guidance and tools fit for each community, to meet the ultimate aim of combining knowledge around common hotspots and mitigation strategies. Alongside carbon footprinting, we will conduct research to understand the behaviours that will support or form barriers to change, meaning the work proposed will embed tools into a more environmentally sustainable research culture. We envisage the creation of an online interface to support the published carbon footprinting guidance which will: (1) foster greater regional and inter-sector collaboration; (2) ensure that global standards and a minimum dataset are considered and established during development; (3) encourage development of global and focused communities of practice to share and learn in partnership; and (4) provide accessibility globally, for all trial communities, to the methodology, calculator and dataset.