Organisational commitment:

Congress recognises the link between a healthy environment and healthy communities. We are committed to leading and advocating for sustainable health care, and to reducing our environmental footprint.

Goals:

• Maximise the environmental sustainability of Congress’s services, and work towards reducing our carbon footprint.
• Demonstrate leadership, responsibility and accountability by advocating for Healthy Country – Healthy Communities and leading action on sustainable healthcare.

Principles:

• Congress has a responsibility to take action on climate change, because climate change impacts directly and indirectly on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people (1).
• Sustainability will be considered alongside other factors (including quality, safety, benefit, cost, risk) in key organisational decisions.
• Maximising efficiency and effectiveness by focusing our efforts on initiatives with greatest potential impact, or flow-on effects, including organisation-wide or system level changes.
• Maintaining flexibility and encouraging innovation to be able to respond to emerging opportunities.
• Commitment to implementing change in a participatory and positive way, including consulting staff and other stakeholders on initiatives that may affect them,
• Recognising that staff are often leaders of change in their communities; empowering staff is the first step to community level change.