MINI REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Planetary Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1685240
This article is part of the Research TopicEnvironment and Healthcare, a two-way traffic: Challenges, Impacts, and Sustainable SolutionsView all 8 articles
Greening Vision: Balancing Clinical Excellence and Ecological Sustainability in Eye Health
Provisionally accepted
- 1Eye Center, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
- 2Fujian Medical University Xiamen Hong'ai Hospital, Xiamen, China
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The rapid advancement of ophthalmic medicine has significantly improved global visual health but concurrently imposed substantial ecological costs, creating an environmental paradox between efficient treatment and sustainability. This review explores the multifaceted carbon footprint of ophthalmic practices through a three-dimensional analysis: spatially, revealing stark cross-national differences in surgical emissions; temporally, tracking the environmental impact of technological evolution from extracapsular cataract extraction to phacoemulsification and vitreous surgery; and technologically, highlighting the role of disposable instruments, biomaterials, and energy consumption. It further presents an innovation matrix for "green ophthalmology," encompassing technological breakthroughs, process optimizations, and behavioral interventions. The review emphasizes the need to integrate the "triple bottom line" (clinical, economic, environmental) into practice and policy, proposing future directions such as blockchain-based certification systems and standardized environmental assessment tools. Ultimately, it calls for multi-level actions-from individual clinicians to global governance-to reconcile high-quality eye care with ecological sustainability.
Keywords: Ophthalmic sustainability, Carbon Footprint, Green ophthalmology, Environmental paradox, Sustainable healthcare
Received: 13 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Tang, Liang, Shi and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bin Lin, linbin1513@foxmail.com
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