Green nephrology: an editor's journey

Climate change, pollution, and depletion of our natural resources represent some of the most significant threats facing society [1]. It is imperative that we urgently reduce overall global carbon emissions and seek new and novel solutions to reduce the environmental impact of all sectors across society, including healthcare. Healthcare, while almost invisible compared to power plants, transportation, and fuel production, is actually a significant contributor to global carbon emissions, with kidney care ranking among the most carbon-intensive of all medical specialties. This is largely due to the heavy environmental burden associated with hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD). As such, the nephrology community has been at the forefront of international efforts promoting and advocating for more sustainable and environmentally responsible healthcare practices. Motivated by the need to highlight this pressing issue, Kidney International embarked on its own journey into Green, Sustainable Nephrology recently and launched a series of mini-reviews dedicated to the topic. Here we highlight some of the key points stemming from these reviews and from our own personal journey and perspective as editors that we believe warrant further consideration. We will also touch base on the importance of knowledge dissemination and on the need to implement open science.