Leadership & Infrastructure

Healthcare has a mission-related responsibility to support efforts that protect the health of patients, employees and the larger community in which they operate. Healthcare’s operational impacts on human and environmental health often contradict this responsibility. Detrimental impacts result from inefficiencies in areas such as design and construction, purchasing, energy and water consumption, waste generation, chemical use and transportation.

The negative human and environmental impacts caused by these activities warrants change.  Shifting healthcare’s design, construction and operational practices to manifest the principle of “first do no harm” can be the key to saving money, reducing waste and toxicity as well as meeting the needs of patients and the community, and providing a safe and respectful work environment. With the growing body of evidence linking climate change, waste, chemicals and energy usage to public health, healthcare has the opportunity to establish a leadership role in addressing these issues, while also enhancing organizational effectiveness and protecting financial resources.

Leadership involvement in sustainability efforts is the difference between having an “initiative” and becoming a top performer in environmental stewardship. Practice Greenhealth has repeatedly found that the most successful healthcare sustainability programs have significant support from healthcare leadership. In 2010, 83% of Practice Greenhealth award winners had representation from senior leadership on their green teams. Top-performing Practice Greenhealth award winners demonstrate increased cost savings and improved environmental outcomes versus mid-level performers.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Over the past ten years, there has been a dramatic shift in the corporate landscape—with corporate social responsibility (and environmental sustainability as a subset) rising to the top as a competitive strategy.  According to the Harvard Business Review, a recent IBM survey found that two-thirds of executives see sustainability as a revenue driver, and half of them expect green initiatives to confer competitive advantage[i].  

In the healthcare sector, a growing recognition that sustainability is inextricably linked to human health has motivated many healthcare organizations to begin integrating sustainability into organizational strategy.  Recognizing the risk of not addressing sustainability is not the same as having the capacity to respond—as we have seen so clearly in the battle against healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Hospitals have quickly learned that sustainability doesn’t integrate itself  and that it extends far beyond having recycling containers in the waiting areas—touching many if not every department in the hospital.

Healthcare executives are also finding that environmental stewardship can mean long-term savings for the bottom line. Hospital after hospital has found that these programs can derive significant financial value for the organization—from reducing waste disposal and energy costs to improving operational efficiency to driving employee engagement to even anecdotally assisting in the recruitment and retention of healthcare staff.  Many healthcare organizations are in the process of determining the operational and reporting strategies necessary to build these programs into the fabric of the organization—rather than building them on, piecemeal.

An Emerging Framework for Integrating Sustainability

Practice Greenhealth has been working with healthcare facilities for more than a decade to develop site-specific sustainability programs and goals. In collaboration with hospital and health system members, Practice Greenhealth has identified a common set of factors that can significantly aid in sustainability progress—and with it, the desired culture change, community relations and bottom line savings. The framework is not necessarily prescriptive—different hospitals may take steps in a different order or prioritize some activities above others depending on financial or site-specific factors. Yet a combination of the following steps can play a key role in enabling a healthcare organization to build a successful sustainability program.   There may also be an opportunity to pull together various initiatives and departments under the corporate social responsibility umbrella.

Not there yet?  Click here to learn about engaging leadership: 

• Baseline Assessment
• Building the Sustainability Team
• Engaging Leadership
• Environmental Stewardship and Magnet® Hospitals
• Measuring Progress & Reporting
• Nurses and Environmental Stewardship – Making the Connection
• Setting Sustainability Goals
• Support in Writing
• Synergies with Existing Healthcare Priorities