At Blue Shield of California, we recognize that our environment directly impacts our health. This is one of the many reasons we are taking action on climate change with a wide range of initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and create a healthier future for our members, employees and communities. To help shed some light on where we are and where we are going on our sustainability journey, we spoke with our new Director of Sustainability, Baylis Beard.
Tell us about your journey to your new role as Director of Sustainability at Blue Sheild of California
When I was working as Director of a crisis intervention and coordinated response non-profit in DC, I was alarmed by how the calls for crisis and mental health support would skyrocket on high heat days. It really sparked my interest around the intersection between health and the environment. I began to learn how by taking climate action, we could better safeguard people’s health. That inspired me to get an MBA with a focus on sustainability and social innovation. While later serving as a Brittingham Fellow on sustainability and social enterprise, I met Blue Shield’s chief humanresources officer at the time, Mary O’Hara, who told me that Blue Shield of California is a great place to do meaningful work and that I should consider exploring opportunities here. I joined Blue Shield on the Heath Reimagined team in 2019, and worked leveraging data to understand the impacts of our transformation work. Leading our efforts to understand the opportunities, challenges, and benefits of our transformation portfolio on Dr. Mahima Ashok’s evaluation was an incredible honor and prepared me up to leverage those learnings to drive sustainability innovation!
I became the director of Sustainability, joining the Corporate Citizenship team in October. Mary was right, Blue Shield is an incredible place to do meaningful work.
Could you share with us a bit about the intersection between health and climate?
Climate change directly impacts our mental and physical health. Seventy three percent of Americans report that climate change is impacting their health. Pollution and climate change cost the U.S. an estimated $820 billion in annual healthcare costs.
In 2023, one third of the US was under air quality alerts, Americans breathed more wildfire smoke in the first eight months of 2023 than they have in most years.
There’s a strong relationship between climate change and mental health challenges. In a 2023 survey commissioned by Blue Shield of California’s BlueSky initiative, 68 percent of youth polled said they experienced a negative mental health issue — such as anxiety, stress, or feeling overwhelmed — in response to climate change. Studies also show that if you are at risk for suicide, high heat can double that risk due to increased physical discomfort and stress, aggravation of mental health and economic stress, and other physiological and psychological effects. Heat creates physical risks as well.
Living in Arkansas and Central America growing up, I saw firsthand the devastation that events like tornadoes and tropical storms can cause, especially for vulnerable communities. Many communities that contribute least to planetary harm – including Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities – are the ones that already face disproportionate burdens of environmental pollution, and climate impacts on health. In 2023, the U.S. experienced 28 separate weather and climate disasters costing at least one billion dollars – and that is a conservative estimate. These extreme weather and climate events are increasing in severity and frequency and bring the most harm to the communities that have the least ability to bounce back from them. Climate change is a force multiplier of inequities, and we cannot meet our goals of addressing health equity unless we address sustainability too.
What is health care’s responsibility to address climate change?
Here are the top three reasons we have a responsibility to address climate:
- We have healing at our mission. Climate change and environmental pollution have created a global health crisis. As the one sector of the economy with healing as its mission, the industry has a responsibility to find ways to decrease our emissions and waste and use our voices to lead the way to a more sustainable, healthier future.
- Addressing climate is necessary step in our larger transformation journey. The US healthcare system contributes as much as ten percent of U.S. emissions - so we have a responsibility to clean up our own footprint. Hospitals produce 6,600 tons of waste daily, equivalent to the weight of nearly 1,900 elephants! That's in addition to the emissions and waste of pharmaceutical companies, medical suppliers and healthcare-related transportation, which all contribute to healthcare emissions. Waste is costly. In addition to reducing our own footprint, we are also responsible for making sure we are investing in and creating a climate-resilient healthcare system that is going to keep our members healthy during extreme weather events. Also, the care we pay for needs to be climate resilient or healthcare affordability will become even harder to address as health systems are hit with increasingly dire effects of climate change.
- Lastly, we have a superpower! Health voices are the most trusted voices on climate-related impacts to health, across the political spectrum. We need to use our voice to educate and bring others along. We want people to understand the importance of climate care as health care and for our members to be safer, healthier and better equipped to take care of themselves, especially in the event of climate crisis.
Could you shed some light on sustainability at Blue Shield and what’s next?
Blue Shield has a wide range of initiatives designed to reduce our carbon footprint including decreasing emissions through our Virtual Blue care model, mitigating impacts through our Supplier Sustainability Program, operating in sustainable offices, and reducing paper to save trees. We also make environmental justice investments to address climate impacts on vulnerable communities. Hundreds of our employees engage in opportunities like our Blue Goes Green group designed to engage our employees around environmental sustainability, volunteering with environmental causes, and donating to create positive environmental impacts.
We’ve recently taken our sustainability commitment to the next level. In December of 2023, we committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the most rigorous and clearly defined pathway for companies to reduce their carbon footprint in line with the Paris Agreement. By 2025, we have committed to set near-term, companywide emissions reductions and submit to SBTi for validation. Blue Shield of California is one of only a handful of health payer plans globally to have committed to setting targets with SBTi.
In addition to our ongoing efforts on climate action, since 2018 we have been tracking our greenhouse gas inventory by disclosing our carbon inventory annually to the CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project). We work every year to assess the impact that the changing climate has on our business, our members’ health, our employees, and our communities.
Why is it important to bring others along and how is Blue Shield doing this?
While the carbon footprint of an insurance company like Blue Shield is relatively small compared to a hospital or health system, our ability to influence the healthcare system is large.
One example of how we are affecting change is our Supplier Sustainability Program. In 2023, we engaged 41 of our suppliers who account for 67 percent of our supply chain emissions. Ninety percent of these suppliers reported to CDP, an essential first step for decarbonization. We are now working with our suppliers to support them in taking the next step to set their own science-based goals for decarbonization.
What are Blue Shield’s sustainability goals and how can someone get engaged?
We aim to shift 67 percent of our purchasing to suppliers with science-based targets in the next five years. We also are working toward zero-waste operations by the end of 2025. We intend to transition 80 percent of our members to paperless communications by the end of 2025. Meeting all these goals will require all hands on deck!
In short, there are no shortage of opportunities to get involved!
Is there a message you would like to share with Blue Shield employees and prospective candidates as you step into this new role?
Our employees are passionate, intelligent and mission-driven! Transforming health care to be more affordable, sustainable, equitable, climate-resilient and worthy of our family and friends for generations to come is going to take all of us. I feel so lucky to work for an organization taking bold action on climate change and to be in this role where I work with smart, talented and inspiring people to address what I believe is the greatest public health crisis that humans have faced.
I encourage you to visit our recent News Center story Climate Care is Health Care to learn more about our action on climate change and how Blue Shield of California is taking our commitment on sustainability to the next level!
Are you passionate about making a difference where you live and work and looking for a role where you can use your passion to make positive change? Be a part of the change! Please take a look at our open career opportunities and apply. You can learn more about Blue Shield’s commitment to stand for what’s right for our communities, our members, and our planet at citizenship.blueshieldca.com.
