Lalloo Ratilal, Elango PraveenKumar, Nicolau Belinda
The University of Queensland, School of Dentistry, Herston, Brisbane, Australia.
Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
J Dent. 2025 Jul;158:105795. doi: 10.1016/j.jdent.2025.105795. Epub 2025 May 2.
There is an ethical and moral obligation to balance the collegial benefits of oral health professional meetings and the environmental impacts of these meetings.
The air travel carbon footprint and distance travelled by attendees of four global oral health meetings in 2023 and 2024 was estimated from publicly available data. The four meetings were the FDI congresses in Sydney in 2023 and Istanbul in 2024; and the IADR general sessions in Bogota in 2023 and New Orleans in 2024. Online calculators were used to estimate these in metric tons of carbon dioxide (Mt COe) and kilometres (km).
. The total Mt COe of the four meetings was about 47,000, which is equivalent to the annual footprint of about 10,000 people. The distance travelled was about 325 million km, equating to about 425 return trips to the moon. Both Mt COe and distance travelled differed across the four meetings, with the Sydney world dental congress contributing most.
The environmental impact of this limited sample of four global oral health meetings is significant. There is a need to implement strategies to reduce this impact while maintaining the importance of the knowledge exchange and scientific advancements these meetings offer.
While the primary focus of the oral health profession is patient care, and the direct clinical implications of this study may not be evident, understanding and addressing the environmental impact associated with our professional activities, such as attending global oral health meetings, can lead to more sustainable practices within the profession. The oral health industry contributes to climate change through its carbon footprint from energy use, travel, and waste production. By adopting environmentally conscious practices, oral health professionals can help mitigate these impacts, thereby promoting overall planetary and human well-being and health.
在口腔健康专业会议的学术交流益处与这些会议对环境的影响之间寻求平衡，是一项道德和伦理义务。
根据公开数据估算了2023年和2024年参加四场全球口腔健康会议的与会者的航空旅行碳足迹和行程距离。这四场会议分别是2023年在悉尼和2024年在伊斯坦布尔举行的国际牙科联合会（FDI）大会；以及2023年在波哥大和2024年在新奥尔良举行的国际牙科研究协会（IADR）大会。使用在线计算器以公吨二氧化碳（Mt COe）和公里（km）为单位进行估算。
这四场会议的总碳排放量约为47,000公吨二氧化碳，相当于约10,000人的年度碳足迹。行程距离约为3.25亿公里，相当于约425次往返月球的行程。四场会议的碳排放量和行程距离各不相同，悉尼世界牙科大会的贡献最大。
这四场全球口腔健康会议的有限样本对环境的影响是巨大的。有必要实施相关策略来减少这种影响，同时保持这些会议所提供的知识交流和科学进步的重要性。
虽然口腔健康专业的主要重点是患者护理，且本研究的直接临床意义可能不明显，但了解并应对与我们专业活动相关的环境影响，例如参加全球口腔健康会议，可促使该行业采取更具可持续性的做法。口腔健康行业通过能源使用、旅行和废物产生的碳足迹对气候变化产生影响。通过采取环保做法，口腔健康专业人员可帮助减轻这些影响，从而促进地球整体以及人类的福祉和健康。
