SIG: Environmental Sustainability in Veterinary Medicine

Climate change is negatively impacting animal health and welfare, biodiversity, and public health, as well as a wide range of other arenas; underscoring the importance and urgency of action to minimize it. However, the public discourse remains hampered by a lack of understanding of the seriousness of the problem. Veterinarians are science communicators and trusted sources of information in their communities and can make a valuable contribution to public understanding of the problem. We will very briefly review climate science and its impacts on animals. We will highlight actions that a hospital and individuals can implement to mitigate these impacts. We will then provide a guide on how to create a sustainability team at your facility. Importantly we will then open the meeting to the attendees for a general discussion on sustainability in veterinary medicine and their insights and experiences in practice.