Abstract
The purchasing of dental goods and services accounts for 19% of the overall carbon impacts of dentistry.
Responsibility for reducing this impact is shared by health systems, suppliers, industry groups, and patients. To accelerate the pace of change, we need strong collaboration across all of these. Collaborating with suppliers, industry groups and health systems could help accelerate the pace of change.
Dentists and oral healthcare professionals may influence, and ultimately reduce impacts by buying less (buying smarter, being more efficient, improving stock control, review expiry dates) buying better (products with improved reduced impacts, from sustainable suppliers, with smarter, less minimal or least impactful packaging, educating patients on effective use of products, preventative care).
We also talk about the ideal product; one that which ideally should be safe, fit for purpose, from renewable sources and not fossil fuel based, grown, able to be reused repeatedly, supplied in sustainable packaging, biodegradable into harmless elements, easy to clean and reuse, simple, transported with clean vehicles or ‘made’ at the point of care, produced with renewable energy, manufactured in ways that do not involve abuse of labour, and, of course, inexpensive!
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Pasdeki-Clewer, E., Wilmott, S., Duane, B. (2022). 
Buying Sustainably and Ethically for the Dental Practice (Procurement).
In: Duane, B. (eds) Sustainable Dentistry. BDJ Clinician’s Guides. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07999-3_9
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