How hospitals can help fight climate change
Interesting article shows what's possible when you believe it's possible to change. We heard about what Germany is doing to become totally green energy -- not just talking about it, actually doing it.
If hospitals can do it, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to do it everywhere. Except for the corruption.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/how-hospitals-can-help-fight-climate-change/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=update&utm_campaign=socialflow
Hospitals and health systems are major vessels of medical waste and massive consumers of energy. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, they are some of the most “complex and energy-intensive facilities” in the country. Major heating and lighting needs, 24/7 occupancy, and large, energy-sucking machines lead hospitals to have more than 2.5 times the energy intensity and carbon dioxide emissions of commercial office buildings.
Health Care Without Harm has helped organize more than 600 hospitals and health systems around the “First, do no harm” motto through the Healthier Hospitals Initiative — a coalition designed to improve environmental health and sustainability in the sector. Jeff Thompson leads Gundersen Health System, based in La Crosse, Wis., one of the vanguard hospitals within HHI. Thompson and his team have set one of the most ambitious energy goals of any health system in the country — by 2014, Gundersen plans to be energy independent, producing all the energy it needs on its own.
Q. Gundersen’s plan to be energy independent in 2014 is one of the most unique among U.S. hospitals and health systems. Can you give some examples of how Gundersen is trying to reach this goal, and is it saving your organization money along the way?
A. The first example I always use — because everyone worries it’s going to take a huge amount of money — is conservation. Our first investment was in conservation. I recommend all CEOs to go for this. In the first year and a half, we spent $2 million. That’s a lot of money, but every year thereafter, we’ve saved $1.2 million in energy expenditures related to that activity. Right now, I don’t know anything in the organization that can get that rate of return.
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Another example is the landfill project. This landfill was filling up outside town one mile from our northern campus. The county laid down a pipe, and now it brings methane to us. We put an engine there that generates electricity and powers the whole campus. There are 1,200 staff [members] at this north campus, and it is completely heated, powered and cooled by methane that three years ago was just being burned into the atmosphere. It also nets the county more than $100,000 per year in payment for their methane. But we still save $400,000 a year on reduced energy costs. We’ve saving money, the county is getting revenue and methane that was previously wasted is heating, powering and cooling a whole campus. It’s hard to say that’s not a good plan.
