The University of Sydney’s Beyond the Cohort: Building Sustainable Systems in Healthcare Education addresses the environmental impact of clinical simulation, one of the most consumable-intensive teaching environments in health education. The project responds to a sector gap by creating sustainability guidelines, waste diversion pathways and reuse protocols for simulation settings without compromising educational quality or clinical fidelity.

Led by a small Faculty of Medicine and Health team using faculty operational funding, the project established a structured waste diversion workflow through Medcycle, embedded a sustainability learning module into simulation teaching, and developed co-designed guidelines now adopted across multiple sites. The project has also produced a peer-reviewed publication, practical guidelines for sector-wide adoption, and an invitation to present at Laerdal Medical’s SUN Conference 2026, demonstrating its value as a scalable model for embedding sustainability into healthcare education.