We have collated resources and reference materials for publicly funded trialists in the area of Greener Trials. On this page you will find:
1) Guidance and the tools required to calculate the carbon footprint of publicly-funded clinical trials
2) Guidance to help enable lower carbon clinical trials
3) Publications relating to Greener Trials and lower carbon trial design
4) Resources for further information
5) How to get involved – we need more data
1) Guidance and tools to carbon footprint publicly-funded clinical trials
Please find below all resources required to carbon footprint publicly-funded clinical trials. These resources are published, but below are the most up to date versions of each document available for public use.
This document describes the purpose and scope of the carbon footprinting method, it includes all required calculations and emission factors and details any limitations or assumptions used in the method. For trialists new to carbon foorprinting and environmental impact assessment we recommend that you read this full guidance document as a first step.
When performing carbon footprinting of a clinical trial, the first step is to collate all activities that have (or will) occur. This is termed activity data. We have developed a questionnaire that can be used to collate all ‘activity data’ in your trial that you will need for the footprinting calculations.
We have developed a ‘quick guide’ worksheet that can be used to structure the carbon footprinting calculations, once all activity data is collected. This quick guide includes all the calculations in their simplest form.
iv) Greener Trials Toolkit: available on request - please email cict-icrctsu@icr.ac.uk
We are currently developing an online, free to use, open-science, eco-design Greener Trials Toolkit that will automate clinical trial carbon footprinting calculations and allow collation data on the carbon footprint of publicly-funded clinical trials. This toolkit and accumulating data is critical to speed up footprinting calculations, refine and expand our footprinting guidance and build the evidence base to allow us to identify hotspots and develop mitigation strategies. As a first step in the development process we have produced an exel version of the tool, which can automate footprinting calculations. Please email cict-icrctsu@icr.ac.uk if you would like to use this tool.
v) Training
In person
Join us at one of our monthly drop-in clinic to learn how to carbon footprint clinical trials. Part one of the clinic is for trialists new to carbon footprinting. Part 2 of the clinic is for those applying our guidance to an actual clinical trial, where we can provide help and support in the actual calculations and development/identification of new emission factors activities not yet included in our guidance. Full details of upcoming sessions are in the flyer below.
Resources
Have a go at footprinting a trial using our ‘Footprint Trial’ protocol. Use the protocol and data collection questionnaire below to collate all the activity data in the Footprint Trial. You can then perform the associated carbon footprinting calculations using the Data Collation Quick Guide.
A completed data collection questionnaire and data collation quick guide are included below, you can use this to check your answers. If you’d like to join a drop in clinic and access training in the use and application of the guidance, please contact cict-icrctsu@icr.ac.uk. The clinics are run monthly and open to all.
TREETOPS App (tool developed for clinical trials sites to review how environmentally sustainable clinical trial sample kit management and waste processes are). https://tinyurl.com/treetopstool
3) Publications relating to Greener Trials and lower carbon trial design
Publications from the Greener Trials Group
Griffiths J, Fox L, Williamson PR on behalf of the Low Carbon Clinical Trials Group. Quantifying the carbon footprint of clinical trials: guidance development and case studies. BMJ Open 2024;14:e075755. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-075755. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/1/e075755
Griffiths J, Adshead F, Al-Shahi Salman R, Anderson C, Bedson E, Bliss J, Boshoff A, Chen X, Cranley D, Doran P, Dunne F, Gamble C, Gillies K, Hood K, Kavanagh C, Malone J, McGregor N, McNamara C, Midha E, Moore K, Murphy L, Newman C, O'Reilly S, Perkins A, Pett S, Sydes M, Whitty L, You F, Fox L, Williamson PWhat is the carbon footprint of academic clinical trials? A study of hotspots in 10 trials. BMJ Open 2024 Oct 16;14(10):e088600. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39414270/
SHADE Newsletter: Essential reading at the intersection of Sustainability, Health, AI, Digital technologies and the Environment SHADE Newsletter (beehiiv.com)
The more trials that are footprinted, the more trial activities we can characterise and add to the carbon footprinting guidance for future users. The more trials we footprint, the more hotspots we can identify for example, in particular types of trial or particular interventions. This data will also make the process of carbon footprinting much quicker and easier for future users, because we will be able to make more assumptions and simplify the calculations. We would also like to collate as much data as possible in a publicly accessible, open-science database (in development) that could be used to facilitate research on hotspots and the mitigation strategies that might help to reduce them. To achieve all of these important aims we need to footprint as many trials as possible and collate the resulting data, if you have a trial in development, progress or completed that you are interested in footprinting we would love to hear from you. Please contact cict-icrctsu@icr.ac.uk.
The attached Memorandum of Understanding explains the information that would be collected and how this will be used, both by the current tools we provide to Drop In Clinic users and in the Greener Trials Toolkit we are developing.
Help raise awareness of Greener Trials and encourage others to get involved by watching and sharing our animation.
