Committed to caring for, protecting and supporting people, especially the most vulnerable, all French Comprehensive Cancer Centres adhere to values that are fully in line with those of sustainable development.
“Unicancer wants to engage its centres in a sustainable development dynamic and to integrate these topics in a common strategy. Centres’ professionals are very sensitive to environmental issues. The levers are numerous: waste management, resource conservation, social responsibility, works, etc.”.
Sandrine Boucher, Medical strategy and performance director at Unicancer
Since 2017, Unicancer and the French Comprehensive Cancer Centres (FCCCs) have chosen to commit to integrating social responsibility into their actions. This commitment is reflected in the signing of a Sustainable Development Agreement, in partnership with other health, social and medical structures, and the public authorities. It meets the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations and is fully in line with the 2015-2020 French Strategy for an ecological transition towards sustainable development.
Environmental concerns
Like all hospitals, French comprehensive cancer centres (Fccs) consume natural resources and energy, emit greenhouse gases and produce waste. As they are specialised in oncology, Unicancer is especially concerned about environmental and safety risks linked to the use of chemotoxic and radioactive products, essential to the treatment of cancer.
Good practices in the health sector
Having signed a collective agreement, the Centres from our network actively participate in the “My sustainable development observatory” campaign (website in French). It consists in a yearly survey for all structures of our sector: covering 6 areas (governance, corporate, social, environmental, responsible purchasing and economy), its objective is to observe changes within structures and to identify areas for improvement. It also offers the possibility for benchmarking with other stakeholders in the same area of activity, and for thus facilitating the implementation of concrete actions.
Corporate social responsibility
The well-being of employees represents a major challenge for Unicancer, which directly influences the quality of care brought to patients. Therefore we are very attentive to working conditions and numerous actions to promote quality of life at work are implemented in French cancer centres.
Also, the Unicancer’s purchasing and innovation access policy includes in its specifications the ten labour and environment principles of the United Nations Global Compact. Thus, Unicancer and FCCCs can select more environmentally-friendly goods and services produced in accordance with the highest social, ethical and environmental standards.
Sustainable development in our Centres
Over several years, numerous initiatives in terms of environmental management have been set up within our network. All FCCCs have received the certification from the French High Authority for Health – HAS v2020, an evaluation of healthcare centres which integrates sustainable development criteria, indivisible from the quality and safety of care.
