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World Kidney Day 2026: Caring for People, Protecting the Planet
CSH enthusiastically welcomes the World Kidney Day 2026 theme, “Kidney Health for All: Caring for People, Protecting the Planet”.
At the 78th World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation shared its first resolution dedicated to kidney disease, positioning the prevention and management of chronic kidney disease (CKD) as a global public health priority.
As part of this commitment, it is essential to acknowledge the intrinsic link between planetary health and kidney health. Climate change compounds CKD risk factors, and in turn, the very treatments required to manage CKD are highly resource-intensive, creating a reinforcing feedback loop through which kidney disease and climate change worsen one another.
“This historic decision elevates kidney health as a global public health priority, recognizing World Kidney Day as a formal observance and urging action on prevention, awareness, treatment access, and environmental risk reduction” – World Kidney Day Campaign 2026
What Can Your Centre Do?
This World Kidney Day, CSH joins the call to governments, health systems, industry, and communities to act together for a greener kidney care system that cares for people and protects the planet.
The campaign highlights five key calls to action. Below are several ways your kidney centre can take steps toward these aims:
Prioritize prevention, early detection, and timely management of kidney disease
Prevention is the first of CSH’s four principles of sustainable healthcare. For kidney care, early detection and preventative care reduce the need for hospital-based interventions.
Learn more about championing prevention as part of the SusQI approach through our free resources.
Promote equitable access to transplantation
Pre-emptive and early transplantation reduces dialysis dependence, lowering the need for resource-intensive treatments, saving centres money, and improving quality of life for patients.
Living kidney donation can reduce wait times and make transplant more equitable. CSH’s Mapping the Living Kidney Donor (LKD) Assessment Pathway Project developed a series of tools and resources to support centres in making their pathway more sustainable, increasing access, efficiency and equity.
Click the button below to access the carbon calculator and toolkit to map and review your pathway.
Transform dialysis toward sustainability
Dialysis is essential, but also the most resource intensive component of kidney care. There is a wealth of actions that centres can take to reduce environmental impact, all of which save money and maintain or improve quality of care.
The Sustainable Kidney Care Project has developed a toolkit and a series of how-to-guides to support centres in making these changes.
Safeguard patient needs in green kidney care
Sustainable care is high quality care, and our case studies prove this. Implementing sustainable change should not come at a cost to patients – in fact, it can improve patient experience of quality of life.
CSH’s Kidney Care Sustainability Network welcomes staff and patients. Join to access case studies, resources, regular events, and to connect with a sustainable community of practice.
Invest in implementation pathways for all contexts.
Clinicians on the ground are inspiring in their approach to embedding sustainability. However, true system change requires stronger policies, government partnerships, and support for innovative approaches to change.
CSH is a partner in the EU co-funded KitNewCare project, which aims to reduce healthcare emissions by 40% relative to 1990 levels through development and implementation of solutions across four EU pilot sites.