Surgical Oncologists for Sustainability: A Statement from the SSO Surgical Oncologists for Sustainability Committee

Global climate change has been shown to have significant health impacts, which has been the subject of several scoping reviews. As surgical oncologists, we see both (1) the negative effects of climate change that increase the risk for cancer in the general population and (2) the contributions of our multidisciplinary cancer management on fueling climate change. As such, there is a perpetuating feedback loop where climate change has been shown to increase cancer incidence, but cancer treatment in turn contributes to climate change. In recognizing climate change as a significant issue, many organizations have raised awareness of sustainable health care and promoted sustainable practices to reduce waste and help mitigate the impact of health care on the environment. To this end, the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) established the Surgical Oncologists for Sustainability Committee. Our objectives in this paper are to (1) increase awareness among our surgical oncology community about the issues regarding sustainable cancer surgery, (2) outline the unique problems related to cancer care caused by climate change, and (3) broadly review high-yield changes that can be made to promote sustainability in surgical oncology. We aim to inspire and begin to equip surgical oncologists to lead environmental sustainability in their practices and their communities.