The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) and the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care would like to congratulate the winners of the 10th annual Green Health Care Awards, as well as acknowledge all participants for their impressive submissions. The awards ceremony, held at HealthAchieve 2011, recognizes hospitals and individuals who demonstrate leadership and excellence in reducing health care’s environmental impact in the areas of Energy Efficiency, Waste Management, Individual Leadership, and Overall Leadership.
The Awards committee would like to thank award sponsors, Enbridge, MHPM Project Managers Inc., the OHA, and The Recycling Council of Ontario.
This year’s Green Health Care Award winners demonstrated tremendous determination, perseverance, and innovation in their ongoing efforts to reduce their facility’s impact on the environment. In addition to realizing successes of the “low-hanging fruit”, these awardees went above and beyond expectations to generate documented environmental savings and engage not only their staff, but also their communities in their efforts.
The 2011 Green Health Care Award Winners are:
Energy Efficiency - London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC)
LHSC has taken a long-term and holistic approach to efficiency. Using a very comprehensive method, including “The Chester Network” employee engagement program, onsite generation (including cogeneration and photovoltaic panels), ongoing retrofits, and an impressive list of initiatives, LHSC has successfully reduced energy consumption with projects that will continue to generate savings year over year.
Waste Management - Chatham-Kent Health Alliance
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance has proven itself to be a model organization in waste management, applying a variety of approaches and technologies to reduce waste generation and increase waste diversion. Their green team, environmental expos, return-to-vendor programs, community outreach, and in-house lab chemical recycling, are just a few of the projects that help make them leaders in waste management.
Individual Leadership - Leslie Carson, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Guelph
Leslie has demonstrated leadership in the quickly-growing area of local food procurement, and in doing so, has paved the way for other health care facilities. Leslie challenged the norms by moving beyond the traditional focus of environmental projects targeting energy and waste reduction. Her efforts have increased the local food content of patient meals to 20% (with a target of 30%), and provided local charity to her community by creating meals from surplus food for distribution to those in need.
Oveall Leadership - St. Joseph’s Care Group
St. Joseph’s Care Group in Thunder Bay has demonstrated leadership within the health care sector and within their local community by investing significant effort in green projects in a variety of areas ranging from energy and waste reduction and building and renovation projects, to IT projects. Their efforts have met with great success despite the challenges faced by hospitals in Northern Ontario, such as limited access to resources. They have established a great community link through the “Green Werks” program, a joint partnership with the Regional Food Distribution Association (RFDA) that enables development of land on-site for growing organic vegetables for distribution throughout the RFDA area. St. Joseph’s also has many other initiatives on the horizon.
For more information about the Green Health Care Awards, contact green@oha.com.