Environmentally Sustainable Healthcare Supports Two National Priorities: Climate and Health

With the focus on Healthcare reform to expand coverage and cut costs, one area that the industry has a great opportunity to embrace and take a leadership role in is cutting its carbon emissions. The Healthcare industry has always strived to provide services to the community in the most thoughtful and health conscious fashion possible. Reporting, disclosing, and managing your carbon footprint through The Climate Registry in a rigorous and transparent fashion meets this challenge head on as well as sets the stage for many sustainability and corporate social responsibility programs.

Sustainability and corporate social responsibility have always been tough concepts to outline and communicate to both employees and stakeholders. Understanding and reporting your greenhouse gas emissions inventory is a great first step to any sustainability program as it helps inventory and identify potential sources of energy use and waste. Since greenhouse gas inventories are directly correlated to energy usage and efficiency, attacking these sources can lead to significant bottom line improvements over time. With energy costs comprising a larger and larger percentage of the operating budgets of healthcare businesses, this is an area that cannot be underestimated or ignored.

On October 13, The Climate Registry, Practice Greenhealth, the Colorado Hospital Association and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will be hosting a workshop in Denver to help potentially regulated Healthcare facilities understand how to best meet their compliance requirements under the new EPA Mandatory reporting rule. If you are interested in participating, please contact me at tymon@theclimateregistry.org or call me at 303.467.7765. This will be the first of a series of workshops that will be held around North America to help educated and position the healthcare industry as leaders on the climate change front. With compliance as a first step, utilizing The Climate Registry to go above and beyond any regulatory requirements can help solidify and enhance your company’s leadership position.

Filed under: Blog — Tymon Lodder @ October 7, 2009