Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Climate protection and planetary health
Climate protection is a topic of central importance for Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, an international leader championing innovation in research, teaching and medical care. In 2019, the state of Berlin and Charité signed a Climate Protection Agreement that sees Charité commit to reducing its CO2 emissions by at least 20 percent by the end of the year 2028. Construction and technical measures, the expansion of renewable energy, the shaping of sustainable mobility and strategies for conserving resources by, for example, using them more intensively all represent steps along this path.
Strengthening the environmental consciousness of employees and students and supporting their personal commitment to taking sustainable action in the workplace is a special priority. Sustainability issues will also become a greater focus in teaching, training and research at Charité.
In an appointment made jointly with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 2019, the physician and epidemiologist Professor Sabine Gabrysch was appointed to the first professorship for climate change and health to be established at a school of medicine in Germany. It is not envisaged that research conducted in this department will focus exclusively on climate change. It will, rather, be embedded within the larger framework of planetary health so that other aspects of anthropogenic environmental change can also receive adequate consideration.