A Growing Spine, a Lifelong Footprint: Rethinking Carbon and the Socioeconomic Exposome in Paediatric Spine Surgery

The spine surgery community has recently been called upon to measure and mitigate the carbon footprint of its operations [1]. A recent study investigated this issue in the context of adult spine deformity surgery and proposed a scalable methodology for calculating the ecological footprint of other domains of spine surgery, potentially including services provided to children and adolescents [2]. However, children should not be treated as small adults, and similarly, research on the carbon footprint of paediatric spine surgery ought to go beyond replicating outcome measures and decarbonisation approaches applicable to adults.