Tools and resources

Idle-reduction toolkit

  • Transportation
  • Suppliers and Deliveries
(U.S. Department of Energy) IdleBox is an electronic education and outreach toolkit on vehicle idling reduction from the Clean Cities Coalition Network. The low-hanging fruit of fuel economy, idling reduction is a simple way to use less fuel and to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases.

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Medical waste treatment and disposal

  • Waste
  • Medical Waste
The main task of a regulated treatment system is to render the waste noninfectious. The technical means to disinfect medical waste has existed for a long time. Incineration was once the method of choice for dealing with medical waste, and many hospitals burned their waste on site. But it gradually became clear that, while protecting the public from infection, hospitals using onsite incinerators…

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Best Practices in Energy Efficiency

  • Best Practices
  • Energy
  • Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency can enhance human health by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving outdoor air quality and decreasing acid rain. The energy needed to run commercial and industrial buildings in the United States produces 19 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, 12 percent of nitrogen oxides, and 25 percent of sulfur dioxide, at a cost of $110 billion a year. The health care sector is…

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Circles of Excellence Honorees

  • Awards
The Circle of Excellence Awards celebrate hospitals who have not only earned an award for all-around sustainability achievement, but who have also been identified as the top scoring programs for each category of sustainability. LEADERSHIP CIRCLE It all starts with leadership. The Leadership Circle represents the high-performing hospitals that have a strong infrastructure supporting a long term…

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Earth Day 2017 member events

  • Earth Day
HealthPartners HealthPartners celebrated Earth Day in lots of different ways in 2017 – from electronics recycling to shred events to bee-friendly plants, there was something for everyone to participate in! Events took place throughout the whole week leading up to Earth Day and all across the Twin Cities Metro area and into Western Wisconsin. In partnership with a local non-profit organization,…

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Greenhealth Cost of Ownership Calculator v1.1

  • Cost of Ownership
  • Supply Chain
  • Calculator
  • Toolkit
(Greenhealth cost of ownership toolkit) Hospitals and group purchasing organizations (GPO) can use this calculator to account for many environmental costs that occur from the purchase of products through to their disposal. By considering costs beyond the product purchase price, such as energy and water the product can require, any supplemental parts and end of life disposal, the calculator allows…

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Climate and Health PowerPoint Presentation

  • Climate and Health
  • Presentation
  • Education
Practice Greenhealth provides a presentation that can be used as a foundation for a discussion or community education event on climate and health. This slide deck is intended to give you a variety of slides that you can pull from, depending on your need. The slide deck goes through the background first: climate change science, health impacts of climate change, and different energy sources. Then…

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Climate and Health PowerPoint

Best Practices in energy efficiency

  • Best Practices
  • Energy
  • Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency can enhance human health by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving outdoor air quality and decreasing acid rain. The energy needed to run commercial and industrial buildings in the United States produces 19 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, 12 percent of nitrogen oxides, and 25 percent of sulfur dioxide, at a cost of $110 billion a year. The health care sector is…

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Webinar: Effectively managing waste anesthesia gas

  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Webinar
The energy and equipment needed to safely evacuate Waste Anesthesia Gas (WAG) in the Operating Room (OR) may be operating during unoccupied periods, wasting energy and wearing out equipment.  Concurrently, minimizing the atmospheric exhaust of WAG is considered a key strategy in reducing a health facility’s carbon footprint.  The global warming potential over 100 years (GWP100) of commonly used…

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Webinar: Energy and water benchmarking for hospitals

  • Water
  • Webinar
  • Energy
  • Toolkit
(Less water toolkit) Energy benchmarking tools keep evolving, and water is an increasingly precious resource that also merits analysis. Checking your patterns of consumption and comparing them with those of your peers in the healthcare industry can provide invaluable insight, and spark ideas for money-saving improvements. Using information from Grumman/Butkus Associates' annual healthcare…

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