Sustainability in dental practice

The potential to make financial savings as well as contribute to the environment in a positive way will be the key drivers of sustainability in dental practice.

What does sustainability mean for you?

For many people, sustainability is synonymous with climate change and the environment, and to a large extent that is true. But it would be a mistake to think of sustainability only in these terms. By definition sustainability is about ensuring that a process or entity is maintained and supported over time. This could be at a micro level - with individual processes, or at the macro level of a dental practice or indeed the whole dental profession.

Sustainability can be thought of as having three pillars – economic, environmental and social. The relative importance of each of these intersecting domains will vary depending on the business, but they are all important areas for dental practices to consider. Is your business sustainable? From an economic perspective, if your revenue doesn’t cover your expenditure, then pretty soon your business will go the way of the dinosaurs and become extinct. What about the environmental and social pillars of sustainability? And how do they link to economic sustainability in the context of dentistry.

Environmental Sustainability

Concerns about climate change drive much of the sustainability agenda, and for good reason. Dental practices produces an enormous amount of waste, including packaging associated with dental materials and single use plastic products. It’s estimated that dental practices in the United Kingdom produce 14.4 tonnes of single use plastic products that end up  as waste each year. A large proportion of the single use plastic products are necessary from an infection control perspective to deliver safe and high quality care to patients. However there is clearly an obligation to consider the environmental impact of the way that dentistry is practised, and to look for more sustainable solutions.

From a waste perspective, the greatest opportunities for dental practices to have an impact focus on reduction, recycling and reuse. Reduction is likely to have the largest scope in the short term, by looking for ways to reduce both the amount of products that contribute to this waste, but also in considering the dental services that produce waste. Recycling efforts must occur throughout the supply chain, and particularly looking at things such as product packaging. Opportunities for reuse may be more limited, but requires a rethink of single-use items. It’s worth noting here that, particularly in areas of recycling and reuse, there is a critical role for the dental manufacturing industry to play. Some of this will be driven by end-user consumer (patient) pressure, but industry will also respond to the direction that the dental profession takes on this as well, so leadership is paramount.

Economic Sustainability

Another key driver of environmental sustainability is carbon emissions associated with energy consumption, and there are opportunities for dental practices to look at both ways to reduce their energy consumption and switch to renewable alternatives. Many dental practices are installing solar panels and subsequently reducing their electricity bills to zero, demonstrating a strong economic benefit to a sustainable approach, particularly with rising energy costs.

An overlooked aspect of incorporating a sustainable philosophy into business is the impact that it might have on staff recruitment and retention. Staff turnover is often overlooked when reviewing business expenditure. For many younger people, sustainability – particularly as it relates to the environment and climate change – is vitally important. Working for a business that embeds sustainability within their purpose and mission will attract and retain staff members for whom this resonates, and therefore has the potential to deliver an economic benefit to the workplace.

Social Sustainability

Health is a fundamental right of all citizens and we should be striving to build a society in which people do not face structural barriers in accessing necessary health care. Ensuring that we have a socially sustainable dental care system is critical in optimising oral health – but this is an area where there is still much work to do. Tooth decay is the leading cause of preventable hospitalisation in Australian children and many adults are not able to access timely and affordable dental care.

Upstream Interventions

A key tenet of public health is focusing prevention upstream rather than having resources directed to treating the problem downstream. We should think about sustainability in the same way, where the focus is usually on some form of downstream intervention – how to reduce the amount of single use plastic products or energy used. But what if we take a step back and think about the core role of dental professionals – to promote good oral health and prevent disease. The driver of the waste and energy issues in dental practice is the need for patients to attend for dental treatment. It was estimated that dentistry contributed to 3% of the overall total carbon footprint of the National Health Service. Around two thirds of that carbon footprint was attributed to staff and patient travel. Measures to improve oral health – both within the dental practice and more broadly at a population level – will reduce the requirement for interventions leading to more sustainable outcomes.

‘From little things, big things grow.’ Paul Kelly    

There is an ethical responsibility for dental practitioners to look at the impact that they are having, and take steps to embrace a more sustainable practice. On their own, the difference that an individual practice makes won’t change the world, but it is the cumulative effects that will ensure over time a net positive impact.

Next week: World Oral Health Day

Last week: If you missed the last few weeks, you can go back and read about Artificial Intelligence in dentistry, Suicidal ideation in Australian dental practitioners and How is public dental care funded in Australia?