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Acting responsibility with a focus on the fututre
MultiCare Health System's environmental sustainability program started in the same manner as many others - through a grassroots movement led by employees who were passionate about recycling and good nutrition. After adding some initial structure, gap assessments revealed how the organization could reduce costs while creating better processes and saving operational expenses.
Now, MultiCare is tapping into the passion of its staff to help create green teams by locations, as well as focus system-wide efforts for waste, energy, and chemicals reduction. Additional efforts focus on adopting and improving environmentally preferable purchasing practices. This article discusses MultiCare's efforts to create and implement a comprehensive sustainability program to serve the needs of patients, staff, community, and the environment.
Healthcare and the Environment
The healthcare industry is quickly embracing the practice of environmental sustainability - not only to improve the environment it inhabits, but also because reducing waste in operations and going green come together to save money. The following statistics1 show the effect that healthcare has on resources:
* Healthcare accounts for 16 percent of the gross domestic product and will grow to 20 percent by 2015.
* Hospitals employ more than 4.1 million people to carry out their 24/7 operations.
* The healthcare industry spends $8.3 billion on energy each year.
* Healthcare facilities are often the largest water users in the community while also producing two million tons of waste per year with increasing amounts of disposable packaging chemicals, and toxins.
Does going green really pay? Using environmentally sound practices is not only good for the planet, but it's also often the right thing for a hospital's bottom line. It's estimated that every dollar a nonprofit healthcare organization saves on energy is equivalent to generating $20 in new revenue.2 While the environmental and human health benefits of green building have been widely recognized, a report to California's Sustainable Building Task Force3 confirms that minimal increases in upfront costs of approximately 2 percent to support green design would, on average, result in life cycle savings of 20 percent of total construction costs - more than 10 times the initial investment. For example, an initial upfront investment of up to $100,000 to incorporate green building features into a...