Work Goes Green: Hospitals

Hospitals have one of the largest carbon footprints of all public infrastructures, using about 2.5 times the amount of energy as a similar sized commercial building. Last week Work Goes Green featured the efforts that Rush University Medical Center, Chicago’s first full-service green hospital, and a leader among green hospitals in the U.S. is taking to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.

Here’s a recap of just a few of their successes:

* Rush has reduced the amount of medical waste it generates per patient by more than 50% in the past 12 years.
* Replacing Styrofoam disposable products with biodegradable products is keeping more than 870,000 Styrofoam plates, cups and containers out of landfills each year.
* In 2009, the Rush recycling program diverted 898 tons of materials from landfills which saved 15, 266 trees, over 341,000 gallons of oil and 3,683,514 KW of electricity.
* Rush has reduced the volume of cafeteria trash by 80 percent thanks to their use of a giant Pulper “food disposal” machine.

A big part of their success comes from the support and commitment of the employee-based Rush Green Team. To find out what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, we interviewed Mary Gregoire, PhD, who leads the team.

Deborah:

How did the Rush University Medical Center Green Team get started?

Mary:

A few years ago, one of my colleagues and I started talking to people who shared our concern for the environment. We wanted to see if there were ways we could make an impact and that was really the beginning of the Rush Green Team. We’re unusual because a lot of hospitals have a paid employee to head this up, but our team is a 100 per cent volunteer team of employees and students from throughout the campus who are responsible for a variety of environmental sustainability initiatives at Rush.

Deborah:

You have a core group of about thirty individuals who meet monthly and do a lot of the heavy lifting. How do they reach out to the broader employee base to foster change throughout the organization?

Mary:

In addition to our core group, we have a mailing list of approximately 100 individuals who are very committed to sustainability issues. They don’t always come to the monthly meetings, but they are our ambassadors, the influencers, who reach out and engage other employees. The Green Team created a sustainability intranet site that provides employees with ongoing updates as well as education. One of our biggest challenges is helping people understand how to recycle correctly, so we created an interactive online quiz for our intranet site that helps people learn how to match recyclables with the correct waste stream. The site also has informative posters and other information tools that can be downloaded and posted in work areas or simply shared with peers.

Our Green Team ambassadors take on much of the responsibility for building awareness on a peer-to-peer basis, but managers also take the initiative in town hall meetings to keep people informed. Events are also a great way to drive interest and get people talking about the issues. We’ve sponsored two Green Fairs and man Green Team booths at employee benefit fairs and picnics. As a result our Green Team mailing list and network of influencers keeps expanding.

Deborah:

In Part I of this series, we talked about your sustainability successes, and you’ve had quite a few. Do your ideas for change come solely from the Green Team, or do ideas bubble up from employees outside of the team as well?

Mary:

A lot of the ideas come from inside the core team, ideas like new napkin holders that dispense one napkin at a time, and reusable laundry bags and surgical packs. But we also get emails from outside the team all of the time. We evaluate each idea and make sure we get back to the person who made the suggestion to let them know what the outcome is. Sometimes it’s just a matter of passing along information to let them know a solution is already in place. Other times we get ideas that we can act on immediately. For example, in the past when our tulips were done blooming we pulled them up and discarded them. Now, as a result of an employee suggestion, we wrap the bulbs and recycle them to employees. It seems simple, but it gets people involved and makes people feel empowered to make change. Right now about 20 percent of waste at Rush is recycled. The goal is to reach 50 percent, and it’s with the help all Rush employees that we’ll get there.

Deborah:

That’s a big goal. Are you seeing a shift in the overall employee attitude towards sustainability, enough of a shift to reach that goal?

Mary:

Absolutely. When you compare where we were 2-3 years ago to where we are now, it’s inspiring. We’ve made some major movement. The amount that is being recycled has gone up every year, and that’s without a mandate. Recycling is all voluntary. What we see is that sustainability is becoming part of the employee culture; part of what Rush is all about. One of the five tenets of our set of Rush values is a commitment to excellence. Now, even at the grassroots level, sustainability has become part of how we define excellence.

Deborah:

Last week I asked you to offer up some words of wisdom to individuals in other organizations who are interested in greening their workplace. You said what’s critical is critical starting. That you don’t have to start big, but you need to start something. What bit of wisdom can you leave us with today?

Mary:

I think it’s important, especially in financially challenging times, to recognize that sustainability is good for the environment, but it’s also good for the bottom-line. At Rush, recycling saves thousands of dollars a month in waste disposal. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.