Life Cycle Assessment Boot Camp: LCA for the Health Sector
August 25-26 and October 6-7, 2025 || 10:00am - ~5:00pm ET || Livestream online training
Quick Overview
This course will provide an introduction into the use of life cycle assessment in the healthcare sector and will provide mentorship for participants to perform their own desired LCA study through the duration of the course. It will train those interested in healthcare sustainability in how to apply principles of industrial ecology to improve the environmental performance of healthcare systems and practices. Through a hands-on and team-based approach, attendees will learn to do a material flow assessment and collect and analyze data on the waste generated through the production and use of a specific healthcare material. Ultimately, participants will be able to interpret LCA results and draft LCA reports. The principles of this course will be taught primarily via virtual modules and lectures requiring independent work with two interspersed intensive virtual workshops. The course is designed and led by an assistant professor whose research is primarily focused on sustainable health systems engineering and life cycle assessment as well as by an emergency medicine physician-investigator who is the director of the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education.
This training is designed for any individuals or teams (2-5 individuals) interested in health care sustainability who have an LCA idea in the healthcare space. Professionals at all career stages are welcome to attend, and we encourage trainees and early-stage investigators to participate.
Full details of training on LCA Boot Camp Website
Requirements
To register for this training, you must have:
- Basic familiarity with excel or similar data management software.
- Basic descriptive statistics experience (e.g. computing averages, standard deviations).
- Access to a working laptop or tablet with video and audio capabilities.
- Access to SimaPro software will be provided to participants for the duration of the boot camp. Participants must ensure their computer is set up to run the software:
- Each participant must have access to a Windows computer. Mac/Linux users can run the software using a Windows emulation system, but access to a Windows computer is encouraged for the duration of the boot camp.
- Each participant's computer must be compatible with SimaPro's System Requirements.
Instructors
Summer 2025 instructing team is being finalized, but will be comparable to the 2024 lineup below.
- Training Co-Director: Cecilia Sorensen, MD, Associate Professor, Environmental Health Sciences at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
- Training Co-Director: Cassandra Thiel, PhD, President & CEO, Clinically Sustainable Consulting LLC; Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health and Department of Ophthalmology at the New York University Langone Health.
- Matthew Eckelman, PhD, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University.
- Jonathan Slutzman, MD, Center for the Environment, Massachusetts General Hospital; Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
Additional Information