Mitigating a Nursing School's Impact on Climate Change: A Quality Improvement Project.

Background: Mitigation is one approach to addressing climate change, which focuses on reducing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. Nurses play a critical role in mitigation to prevent the health impacts of climate change. Recommendations to mitigate climate change in higher education institutions reflect four themes: policy, people, process, and practice. This quality improvement project aimed to mitigate a metropolitan nursing school's impacts on climate change.

Methods: A Sustainability Champion Workgroup was formed to address gaps identified in the organizational needs assessment. A No Waste November (NWN) campaign and a sustainability dashboard were created to engage participants and increase awareness about climate change and environmentally sustainable behaviors. A pre- and post-NWN survey, adapted from the Nurses' Environmental Awareness Tool, and waste disposal measurements over 6 weeks were used to assess the impact of these interventions.

Results: The post-NWN survey showed the greatest increases in mean scores for the following environmentally sustainable behaviors: biking, walking, carpooling, or taking public transportation to work; leading or participating in recycling initiatives; serving on committees that purchase sustainable supplies; and composting. Waste disposal measurements revealed a higher proportion of recycling to landfill waste during 5 out of the 6 weeks of measurement.

Conclusion: Nurses and higher education institutions play an important role in mitigating the human impacts on climate change through environmental sustainability initiatives. Barriers to adopting environmentally sustainable behaviors and incentives to support these behaviors also need to be examined and addressed in future projects.