Sustainability was a central theme at ECR2024, Reed Omary, a professor of radiology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told Mélisande Rouger on his first visit to the Vienna-based congress last February.
‘What’s really struck me is how much sustainability is present here and now,’ said Omary, who took a sabbatical to raise awareness of climate change.
In the United States, sustainability in terms of the environment is less front and center than it is in Europe, according to Omary.
‘On the other side, we have an opportunity in bringing an American perspective to sustainability, thinking about it from an economic perspective,’ he said after moderating a community event on the topic at ECR. ‘In the U.S., often the question is why should we do something if it doesn’t lead to any economic benefit. And what we’re finding is that there’s so much opportunity to reduce waste when we bring a sustainability perspective to our operations that we can save money.’
2024 is an interesting time, as over 40 nations are going to the polls to vote for their leaders. ‘That’s over four billion people (…), so half the world has the opportunity to vote for someone who may be more planetary focused. And we should, if we have the opportunity, absolutely use it to vote for the right candidates,’ he concluded.
