Retina Care operates as a carbon-neutral medical practice — reducing and offsetting its environmental footprint through a variety of methods and verified programs. No other retina practice in Oregon makes that commitment.
Healthcare is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, healthcare is responsible for roughly ten percent of the country’s total carbon output. Medical practices rarely talk about this. Retina Care does — and backs the conversation with action. The practice offsets its carbon footprint through verified carbon offset programs, making it the only retina practice in Oregon with an active commitment to environmental neutrality.
Why Healthcare Has an Environmental Problem
Medical care generates significant waste — single-use disposables, pharmaceutical packaging byproducts, transportation, and energy consumption from imaging equipment and climate-controlled clinical spaces. Ophthalmic practices contribute through the consumables used in every procedure and the energy demands of precision diagnostic equipment like OCT machines and laser systems.
Most healthcare providers acknowledge this problem abstractly and do little about it concretely. Retina Care chose a different approach: measure the practice’s footprint, reduce what can be reduced, and offset the remainder through verified programs that fund renewable energy, reforestation, and carbon sequestration projects.
What Carbon Neutral Means in Practice
Carbon neutrality means that the net carbon dioxide equivalent emissions attributable to the practice are zero. This doesn’t require eliminating all emissions — it requires accounting for them and offsetting every ton emitted with a verified ton sequestered or avoided elsewhere. Retina Care works with established carbon offset programs that meet third-party verification standards, ensuring that the offsets purchased represent real, measurable environmental benefit.
The practice also pursues operational reductions where possible — minimizing single-use waste, optimizing energy use, and choosing suppliers and vendors with their own sustainability commitments when alternatives are available. The combination of reduction and verified offsetting achieves the net-zero baseline that defines carbon neutrality.
Why This Matters to Oregon Patients
Oregon has one of the strongest environmental ethics of any state in the country. Oregonians across the Willamette Valley, the Rogue Valley, the southern coast, and the Umpqua region care about the environmental impact of the businesses and institutions they support. Healthcare is often exempt from that scrutiny — patients need care regardless of a practice’s environmental posture. But given a choice between a practice that ignores its environmental footprint and one that actively addresses it, that difference is meaningful.
For patients in Medford, Roseburg, Ashland, Grants Pass, and the communities between them, choosing Retina Care means receiving subspecialty retinal care from a practice that shares their values — not just in clinical quality, but in how it operates as a member of the southern Oregon community.
A Differentiator That Reflects a Broader Commitment
The decision to operate as a carbon-neutral practice reflects the same orientation that shaped every other structural decision at Retina Care: build the practice according to the values that should define excellent care, not just the minimum required by regulation or convention. Providing subspecialty-only care, maintaining direct surgeon access, investing in current equipment — and operating with environmental responsibility — are all expressions of the same underlying commitment to doing things right.
No other retina practice in Oregon is making this commitment. Retina Care is.
At Retina Care, retinal specialist Peter Karth, MD, MBA, FASRS, FACS is happy to help you with your retina concerns. Please call 541-873-8462 to schedule an appointment at a location near you.