The sustainable physiotherapy clinic
On this page, you will find a growing range of resources that will help you improve the sustainability of your day-to-day clinical environment.
In itself, and like many other allied health professions, physiotherapy provides health care with a comparatively low carbon and overall environmental footprint, given its focus on the use of movement, touch, communication and the use of natural remedies. To this extent, physiotherapy has much to contribute to the improvement of healthcare systems sustainability, which, are costly for the environment and economy alike resulting from the high carbon emissions derived from hospital care and the pharmaceutical industry. You can find many publications addressing the latter on our research page. This pages focusses on material on how we can additionally work to reduce the environmental footprint of physiotherapy clinical environments, whether you work in hospitals, clinics, the community, or other settings.
EPIC poster: How to make your clinic more environmentally sustainable
Throughout 2021, and in close collaboration with the EPA, a team from our German partner organization the Health for Future physiotherapy working group – Physios for Planetary Health (PPG) has developed a poster that can help you improve the environmental sustainability of your day-to-day clinical environment. You can download the poster in different formats and languages below, hang the posters anywhere you work, and if you can, share a photo on your social media channels by tagging the Environmental Physiotherapy Association and using #EnviroPT.
The poster contains a QR code link that will take you to an additional page providing supporting information and resources for each point made on the poster.
We would love your help in translating the poster into as many other languages and adapting it to as many different regional contexts as possible. If this sounds like something you would like to get involved in, please get in touch using the contact form at the bottom of this page.
EPIC Poster: How to make your physiotherapy clinic more sustainable
Deutsch
EPIC Poster: Wie man seine PT Praxis ökologisch nachhaltiger machen kann
Español
EPIC cartel: Cómo hacer que tu clinica de fisioterapia sea más sostenible desde el punto de vista medioambiental
Íslensk
EPIC plakatið: Hvað þarf til að gera vinnustaði sjúkraþjálfara umhverfisvænni?
Norsk
EPIC Plakat: Hvordan forbedre den miljømessige bærekraften til din fysioterapiklinikk
Português
EPIC cartaz: Como tornar a sua clínica de fisioterapia mais ambientalmente sustentável
Français
Affiche EPIC: Comment faire de votre cabinet de physiothérapie un lieu plus respectueux de l’environnement ?
US version
EPIC poster: How to make your PT clinical more environmentally sustainable
Magyarul
EPIC plakát: Hogyan teheti fizioterápiás rendelőjét környezeti szempontból fenntarthatóbbá
اللغة العربية
كيفية جعل عيادة العلاج الطبيعي الخاصة بك أكثر استدامة بيئياً
Relevant publications
Baier, L., Richter, R., Maric, F., Höppner, H. (2023). Umweltverantwortlich Handeln in der Physiotherapie. In: Hartung, S., Wihofszky, P. (eds) Gesundheit und Nachhaltigkeit. Springer Reference Pflege – Therapie – Gesundheit . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64954-1_33-1
Duindam, D.. (2022). Transitioning to Sustainable Healthcare: Decarbonising Healthcare Clinics, a Literature Review. Challenges, 13(2), 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/challe13020068
Ibáñez, A., de las Mercedes Franco Hidalgo-Chacón, M., Sánchez-Romero, E., & Cuenca-Zaldivar, J. (2022). Situation of Physiotherapy Clinics in the Community of Madrid in Relation to the Concept of Sustainability: A Survey Study. Sustainability, 14(24), 16439. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416439
Palstam, A., Sehdev, S., Barna, S., Andersson, M., & Liebenberg, N. (2022). Sustainability in physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Orthopaedics and Trauma. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mporth.2022.07.005
Lister, H. E., Mostert, K., Botha, T., van der Linde, S., van Wyk, E., Rocher, S.-A., Laing, R., Wu, L., Müller, S., des Tombe, A., Kyangyago, T., Zwane, N., Mphogo, B., & Maric, F. (2022). South African Healthcare Professionals’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Environmental Sustainability in Healthcare: A Mixed-Methods Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(16), 10121. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191610121
Langballe, M. N., & Maric, F. (2022). Ein fysioterapeutstudents erfaring med å leda ein «grøn» faglunsj. Fysioterapeuten. https://www.fysioterapeuten.no/baerekraft-fysioterapi-personlig-erfaring/ein-fysioterapeutstudents-erfaring-med-a-leda-ein-gron-faglunsj/146279
Maric, F., Groven, K.S., Banerjee, S. & Dahl-Michelsen, T. (2021). Essentials for sustainable physiotherapy: Introducing environmental reasoning into physiotherapy clinical decision-making. Fysioterapeuten (online). https://fysioterapeuten.no/fagfellevurdert-sustainable-physiotherapy/essentials-for-sustainable-physiotherapy-introducing-environmental-reasoning-into-physiotherapy-clinical-decision-making/1317
Moses, R., Vyas, A., & Wood, S. (2019). Reducing the carbon footprint in a regional long term ventilation service with the use of remote monitoring. Physiotherapy, 105, e209–e210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2018.11.230
Maric, F. & Nicholls, D.A. (2019) A call for a new environmental physiotherapy – An editorial, Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 35:10, 905-907. https://doi.org/10.1080/09593985.2019.1632006
Jones, L.E. (2009a). Physiotherapy and the Earth’s global climate: a need for cultural change. Physiotherapy Research International, 14(2): 73–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/pri.441
WHO (2023). Operational framework for building climate resilient and low carbon health systems. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240081888
Our courses on Plus by Physiopedia
Page header image by Matt Montgomery on Unsplash
All poster art by miu creative : Illustration-based design