The Department of Rheumatology, Outpatient Clinic and Research and the REMEDY Research Center organized the Green Congress for Rheumatology on June 20. The event offered highlights from EULAR 2025 in a climate-friendly setting.
Clinic manager Kjetil Bergsmark, rheumatologist Lena Nordberg and biologist Dag O. Hessen took questions from the audience after the environmental lecture.
The idea behind Green Congress is to contribute to a more environmentally friendly society . When we pass on knowledge from international conferences locally, we can reduce travel.
Professional update
The more than 536 registered participants gained insight into professional updates within rheumatic disease.
The program included pediatric and adult rheumatology, digital follow-up, health literacy, lifestyle, and connective tissue diseases. The panel discussion at the end highlighted clinical relevance and the need for change in practice.
The hospital's green responsibility
With this interview about the hospital's green responsibility, the chairwoman of the Diakonhjemmet Foundation, Ingunn Moser, and the hospital director at Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Kari-Jussie Lønning, anchored the work on climate and environment at the hospital in the top management in advance of the event. “The green congress is inspiring for the entire hospital,” says hospital director Lønning.
Perhaps several environments at the hospital will implement measures to cut environmental emissions?
This year's environmental lecture by Dag O. Hessen
Hessen gave an engaging speech about climate change and tipping points for the world. He emphasized that the world needs each and every one of us to ensure that the Earth remains livable for humans in the future.
He said, among other things:
The biggest health challenges we face worldwide are due to climate change.
Taking care of nature is the most important thing we can do to counteract temperature changes.
There is a difference between morality and moralism. Having a climate concern is also something different from having climate anxiety. There are good reasons to be concerned. The hope is that we all increase our environmental literacy and take the consequences of that into our daily lives.
We can avoid traveling by plane, eat less meat, use public transportation, buy used goods, etc. Using climate calculators to reduce consumption as smartly as possible is also a good idea.
We have overcome many challenges over the years, such as the ozone problem, the smoking law, women in education, etc., so the opportunity exists for us to come together on good environmental measures to reduce environmental emissions.
"It is important to emphasize that saying no to climate emissions is the same as saying yes to something good. What could be more meaningful than that," he asked.
It's hard to disagree with that, summarizes several of us who were present.
Everyone is important to the world
Most people are probably doing a lot for our world already. Here are ideas to make an even bigger difference . The rheumatology community at the hospital has also taken the initiative for a binding CO2 reduction. Perhaps more units will report such measurable measures in synergy?
The health sector can contribute to a better future
For more information on what we in the health sector can do, see the BMJ's interactive solution for different topic areas. For example, did you know that it is much more sustainable to give one gram of paracetamol for pain relief instead of two 500 milligram tablets? And that it is much better to give medicine by mouth than intravenously?
Highlights from the EULAR Congress
In the preliminary feedback, most people agree that the Green Congress managed to present professional updates within rheumatology in an environmentally friendly framework.
You can see the full program here
As usual, the event was environmentally approved through the FEE Norway foundation .
Green Congress 2026
Next year's Green Congress will be held on June 19th, so save the date. If you were present at this year's event, it's still not too late to give feedback on the event via this link.
