1.Sustainable Health Verification Programme

Both health problems and sustainability issues have become more acute over the past decade and it seems prudent to believe that the pressures to find solutions that meet both health and sustainability claims will not decrease in the coming years—quite the contrary. Climate change may affect productivity and yield negatively, create food supply problems and increase food insecurity. Modern everyday life may lead to unhealthy shifts in dietary patterns and increase in lifestyle diseases. Increased use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and GMOs may impair the environment and aggravate health problems. Further, the intensification of agricultural production may create new health and environmental problems, if the direction of intensification is not changed. Growing socio-economic inequality between the North and the South and within the highly industrialized countries are other problems pushing for integration of health and sustainability.

in the other hand, Health is a worldwide concern. Indeed, it is the third of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)— “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”; it is also strongly related to most of the other SGDs.

During a climate of increased concerns about the quality of health-oriented products such as supplements, herbal medicine and …, Sustainable Health Verification Programme as a voluntary plan can help enhance a manufacturer's competitive position and brand recognition by promoting the manufacturer's commitment to produce quality products for consumers.

Commitment to Sustainable Health Verification Programm indicates that the product:

• Has been made according to International/ National Practices and standards using sanitary and well-controlled procedures. Assurance of safe, sanitary, well-controlled, and well-documented manufacturing and monitoring processes indicates that a supplement manufacturer is quality-conscious, and that the supplement will be manufactured with consistent quality from batch to batch.
• Contains the ingredients listed on the label, in the declared potency and amounts. Tests have shown that contents of some supplements don't match the label and some contain significantly less or more than the claimed amount of key ingredients.
• Does not contain harmful levels of specified contaminants. Some supplements have been shown to contain harmful levels of certain heavy metals (e.g., lead and mercury), microbes, pesticides, or other contaminants. At specific levels these contaminants can pose serious risks to one's health.

·         Respect to Sustainability

Humans are exceeding the carrying capacity of the earth at current levels of consumption and standards of living. The ways we produce food, travel, and use water, land and energy resources, combined with a growing world population, have severely compromised the environmental resources upon which we depend. Global environmental change, including climate change, ecosystems degradation, and species and biodiversity losses, has been so extensive that we now risk major impacts on human health and well-being. In fact, evidence indicates that these health impacts are already occurring.

Those who are the most vulnerable will be affected earliest, and most: children, elders and those with the fewest resources. The Company is committed to enhancing the health, productivity, and quality of life of our community through the design and maintenance of the built environment and the development of cutting-edge well-being programs.

How to obtain Sustainable Health Verification Mark?

Health-oriented products that meet the program's testing and evaluation criteria in accordance with SDGs are awarded the Sustainable Health Verified Mark. The Mark can be used on product labeling, packaging, and promotional materials to help distinguish products in the marketplace and aid consumers in their decision-making process.

To obtain the Sustainable Health Verification, manufacturers must undergo:

• Manufacturing facility assessment for compliance with SDGs and International Standards such as GMP, ISO, …. It confirms that the manufacturer has the appropriate quality systems needed to ensure product quality.

• Review of manufacturing and quality control product documentation with a focus on SDGs to ensure quality procedures are consistently being followed and to explore how those procedures provide adequate and appropriate control to ensure continued quality compliance
• Sustainability Assessment: A sustainable health is achieved by delivering high quality product or services and improved public health without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage. this assessment involves ‘greening’ the sector with particular attention to energy, travel, waste, procurement, water, infrastructure adaptation and buildings. This ensures resources (physical, financial and human) used in the sector are:

1. Used efficiently (e.g. buildings and homes are well insulated and use less fuel to heat)
2. Used responsibly (e.g. clinical waste is disposed of safely to protect local people)

·         Laboratory test reports of samples of products for conformance to standards of quality found in International Scales. The laboratory should be an accredited one. it provides assurance that the product conforms to its identity and quality specifications and contains the ingredients listed on the label in the declared strength and amounts.

The distinctive Sustainable Health Verified Mark is awarded by Sustainable Health Programme to health-oriented products that successfully undergo and meet the stringent requirements of this voluntary Verification Programme.

It indicates that the product:

·         Has been made using safe, sanitary and well-controlled manufacturing practices according to International and Local guidelines

·         Contains the ingredients listed on the label, in the declared potency and amount

·         Does not contain harmful levels of specified contaminants

·         Considering the sustainability of everything that impacts on health and well-being and promote Better, equitable and sustainable health and wellbeing for all ages

Benefits of Verification

• Sustainable Health Verification Program is open to manufacturers of health-oriented products from around the world. When it comes to these kind of products, many consumers and healthcare practitioners look for independent oversight from an independent third-party not associated with the manufacturer, and with the necessary expertise to assess quality.
• Sustainable Health Verification Program helps manufacturers demonstrate the quality of their product ingredients.

Sustainable Health Verification Program uses a multi-step evidence-based process to confirm the accuracy of the information supporting the quality of each product being verified in a particular program.

Verification is not a one-time event. Sustainable Health Programme annually evaluates the quality of the products through the three-step process listed above.

2-UNSHP Membership Platform

-support implementation of the Sustainable Health Criteria by members in a local context;

-provide a platform for members to share ideas and best practices and facilitate networking and collaboration;

-consolidate understanding of common Health challenges – with a focus on local / regional issues;

-encourage new and existing members to get involved in UNSHP activities in other regions;

-raise awareness about Sustainable Health Code of Practice and recruit new members;

-engage with local companies and policymakers collectively on specific Sustainable health issues; and

-Provide intelligence to the UNSHP regional office on the issues and challenges facing local members.

-Creating a financially sustainable health system

2-UNSHP Financial Management Services for Health Industry

Sustainable Health and Economy

The World Economic Forum has made health a priority global initiative, recognizing it as central to the Forum’s overall mission to improve the state of the world.

Looking at health as a fundamental economic issue, the Forum aims to address two major gaps-accesses to health and access to care - making health and care an investment for economic development and growth achievements and advances in health and healthcare are a major success story of the past two centuries. However, this success has come at a cost, with healthcare expenditure outstripping GDP growth for decades across the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Given the main reasons for rising health expenditures, it is unlikely that focusing solely on improving healthcare supply efficiencies will lead to sustainable health systems in the future.. In today’s economic climate, many governments are targeting healthcare expenditure for cost-cutting as part of broader austerity programs. A discussion on long-term sustainability therefore is timely to ensure that short-term priorities do not damage long-term value. Health system leaders need to think for the future, expanding the group of responsible stakeholders and breaking from the status quo to deliver high quality, full-access, affordable, sustainable health services.

“The preferred health system of the future is strikingly different from the national healthcare systems of today, with empowered patients, more diverse delivery models, new roles and stakeholders, incentives and norms.” 

In the long run, the growth of material production and consumption is limited by natural resource constraints, and achieving a sustainable future will require policies and institutions that maintain the economy within the bounds set by nature. But significant growth of GDP—a measure of the subjective value of goods and services—can nonetheless be achieved in the interim through a move to technologies and consumption patterns sufficient to sharply reduce the economy’s “ecological footprint.

“Creating a financially sustainable health system requires a major re-orientation towards value and outcomes, the involvement of a broader set of stakeholders in a more effective governance structure, and greater engagement and responsibility of patients and citizens Strategies With the visions in mind, participants suggested strategic options to achieve those aspirations.”

From the Conversations, Three major themes emerged: Embrace data and information to transform health and care. We are entering the age of precision medicine, fundamentally challenging the past practice of medicine. Improved data and information are beginning to change the way that health systems operate and make decisions, a transformation that can be enabled by faster and more productive adoption and integration of these data Innovate healthcare delivery.

“To achieve a sustainable health system for the future, societies must reshape demand for health services, reducing the disease burden by helping people to stay healthy and empowering them to manage their health.”

Health systems can encourage people to develop healthier habits, incentivize healthier consumption and develop an environment and infrastructure that facilitate population health Critical uncertainties Future health systems will be influenced by a number of factors outside the control of health system leaders.

3. Financial Services for Organizations

A) Financial Services for Non- Profit Organization:

International donors are increasingly focused on funding programs that can sustain services beyond their grant horizons. Donor fatigue is on the rise as new social service organizations are joining the market and competing for donor resources. While some programs have introduced innovative means to earn revenue and lower donor dependency, other programs recognize sustainability as a lesser priority and are still reliant on grants and donation opportunities available. Proponents of this argument claim it remains possible to scale-up services through such models rather than invest time in developing social businesses, and risk losing patients as well as reduce their access by charging for services.

Several not-for-profit organizations and charity operations have attempted to fill this gap by providing healthcare services for low-income groups. However, traditional models of charity or donation-based public health services face growing criticism. International donors increasingly perceive development-funding as investments for sustainable services rather than one-time donations. Local donors are similarly keen to support programs that could provide maximum utilization of their charitable contributions.

Consequently, many poor-focused health organizations are developing interest in breaking away from the grant-based approaches and incorporating an income generation facet into their programs to achieve financial sustainability. Financial sustainability of an organization can be described as the “capacity to obtain revenues in response to a demand, in order to sustain productive processes at a steady or growing rate to produce results and to obtain a surplus3. Financial sustainability in the context of this document implies sufficient revenue generation through inherent operational processes to sustain services in the longer term. For public health programs sustainability may arise through a number of processes, several of which are adaptations of for-profit business models.

B) Financial Services for Profit Organization:

Leaders within healthcare organizations of all shapes and sizes face a wave of challenges including globalization, the explosion of information technologies, concerns around environmental impacts, changing demographics, increased regulatory scrutiny, pending healthcare reform and, most recently, a global economic recession. Many of these challenges are landing on the desk of decision-makers charged with managing the workplace. These individuals carry different titles, but share common responsibilities: delivering workplaces that are safe, comfortable, productive and cost-effective. Many leaders ask a relatively consistent set of questions:

How can we lower our $/square foot costs?

What can we do to use less fossil fuels, electricity and water in our facilities?

How do we meet our environmental commitments?

Can our workplaces help us build a more innovative and talent-rich culture?

Can our facilities improve our image in our community?

Ongoing research points to four key themes that consistently arise to the top of the list.

Research from Johnson Controls suggests that any and all sustainability initiatives must:

Reduce operating costs across the organization

Reduce the environmental footprint (emissions, waste, water and energy)

Secure its own support and funding (by paying for itself in some way)

Educate and engage stakeholders (employees, partners, customers and community)

If organizations are beginning to learn about sustainability, they start by talking about managing operating costs first and reducing their environmental footprint second. Many healthcare organizations (particularly those familiar with Johnson Controls) quickly move to the topic of energy efficiency because it is seen as an area that offers the most opportunity to reduce costs, reduce environmental impacts and pay for itself through energy efficiency savings.