Once an organization has invested in an environmental initiative, how can it generate ongoing savings?
One way is to leverage employee engagement, such as creating a challenge or competition for employees, to increase participation and achieve results. Choose a metric that all employees can contribute to, establish a baseline, and set the challenge! These can range from energy to waste or water consumption, and can be as specific as turning off equipment or as broad as reducing overall consumption.
In this issue of Going Green!, Kingston General Hospital demonstrates how combining environmental initiatives with employee engagement can sustain cost savings.
This article comes from KGH this week May 10, 2011 volume 1, issue 3.
At Kingston General Hospital (KGH), staff are invited to engage in some friendly competition with their peers to see who can save the most energy during a six-week “Energy is the Remedy” challenge. The intent is two-fold: help curb unnecessary energy consumption at work – and create some long-lasting habits that you can also use at home.
Here’s how it works: an energy meter is set up to measure the department’s electricity usage for about two weeks to get a baseline. Then staff set a goal – usually a 10 percent reduction – and brainstorm ways to reduce their overall usage such as shutting off lights and computers when not in use. Staff put these new energy savings strategies into action over four weeks to see if their efforts made a difference.
The changes may seem small but when implemented across an entire department, they can make a significant impact. “Technology plays an important but only partial role in energy conservation,” says Chris Mackey, Director of Facility Engineering and Maintenance. “People’s actions can often make a larger contribution to energy conservation and help sustain the savings far into the future.”
To help gauge interest in the department challenge, staff are being asked to identify what might help and what might prevent them from participating via a short online survey. The feedback will allow KGH to prepare an energy savings toolkit to assist departments in meeting their targets. Check out the evaluation on KGH Today under the “Energy Matters” quick link.
KGH is already making great strides in reducing our carbon footprint and cutting energy costs through a facility retrofit program which is now 30 percent complete. The 16-month project combines innovative roof-mounted solar panels with a host of traditional upgrades such as updating light fixtures, installing low-flow toilets and sinks and sealing drafts in windows and doors. Together, these upgrades will improve overall energy efficiency and make the internal environment more comfortable for patients and staff. All of the upgrades should be completed by early 2012.
Once complete, the combined improvements will eliminate approximately 2,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, equivalent to removing nearly 740 cars from the road, and conserve nearly 72,000 cubic meters of water annually, the same as filling 29 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The improvements will also save the hospital about $760,000 in utility costs annually.
You can track the project’s status by logging onto the KGH “Energy Matters” website at http://www.kgh. myenergymatters.net/home
To be featured in a future issue of Going Green!, submit your organization’s environmental success story to Green@oha.com.