Vanderbilt Law, in collaboration with the Vanderbilt Law Private Climate Governance Lab (PCG), Iowa Hubbell Environmental Law Initiative, and the Medical Students for a Sustainable Future (MS4SF), hosted Zoe Beck for a lunchtime talk titled Leading Sustainability in Practice: Corporate Responses to Climate Risk. The talk was the third event in the Private Sector and the Planet Speaker Series.
Beck is the Assistant Vice President of Sustainability at HCA Healthcare — a Nashville-based company comprising 184 hospitals across 21 states. She leads the company’s efforts in sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, convening stakeholders to develop and advance initiatives involving environmental performance, health equity, and reporting transparency.
Drawing on her leadership at one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers, Beck explored the role of the private sector in advancing climate solutions while maintaining operational excellence and improving community health incomes. The conversation highlighted how sustainability initiatives within healthcare intersect with corporate governance, innovation, and environmental stewardship. Professor J.B. Ruhl moderated the discussion.
Beck emphasized how a large organization can earn buy in at every level from its employees, especially healthcare practitioners.
“I think there are a lot of people on the floor [and] at the bedside that are thinking about this a lot, and they’re actually the best cheerleaders and the best people to create behavior change,” Beck said.
She emphasized the importance of education to create that buy in as well. “There’s a lot of education that goes on, because beyond just the providers that are at the beside, you have your operators that are working on getting all the supplies and managing the people and making sure everybody is in the right place at the right time, and so it takes a lot of meetings, but once it all comes together, it’s a really good thing,” she noted.
Beck added that education and innovation initiatives are growing rapidly among healthcare providers, as companies look toward more climate-friendly solutions.
“There are a lot of different projects that happen like community gardens, or healthcare facilities that have bee hives and use their honey,” Beck said. “So, there’s a lot of cool things happening at the ground level.”
Beck also discussed the importance of long-term emergency planning and energy resilience from healthcare companies factoring in the effects of climate change. She noted these areas of focus are growing more prominent as severe storms become more widespread.
“Depending on the markets in which you operate, you’re ready,” Beck said. “Your emergency planning is going to be a lot more constant [than before].”
These efforts are not just happening at an individual level though institutions like the National Academy of Medicine’s Global Coalition of Academies of Medicine on Climate and Health bring together experts to center the climate within these industries.
“There are a lot of physicians and nurse coalitions getting together to study [the interaction of climate and health],” Beck said. Their findings and recommendations can impact the types of procedures and materials used in healthcare settings.
“We all took a look at our anesthetic gasses, because they were not great for the environment,” Beck said. “There was a clinically acceptable option that was less bad for the environment, because of the studies that were done by physicians, specifically anesthesiologists, the whole industry is generally making that change.”
Beck concluded the conversation by noting her motivations and the challenges that still lay ahead. The first thing she emphasized was that the prospect of creating a better world for her kids to live in.
“My 11-year-old said to me the other day, ‘You better not screw up this planet for us,” Beck said. “From a more professional perspective, I would say, in this sort of societal landscape right now, just to keep this work moving because it’s important. It’s important to businesses, it’s important to communities.”
She also stated that the field is not going anywhere; there is still lots to be done. Some of the most pressing challenges and problems on the industry, Beck stressed, lay before the industry and the next generation of sustainability experts.
“Sustainability is not going anywhere. We might change its name a lot of times between now, and, you know, five or 10 years from now, but it touches everything,” Beck said. “I would say whatever you’re interested in, be that industry or function, learn how sustainability works within that industry or within that function.”
Lastly, she left the audience with a list of issues she sees most pressing to her industry, and the broader nation at this moment: energy resilience.
“How do we keep things operating and manage all of this energy demand in a way that is still good for all of us?,” Beck said. “We all need energy. There’s no way around it.”