May 20 2008
The Premier healthcare alliance today received the 2008 "Champion for Change" award from Practice Greenhealth (PGH), formerly Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, for its leadership in helping alliance member hospitals and health systems promote environmentally friendly practices.
The Champion for Change Award is given to organizations that supply healthcare products and services that are considerate of the earth and its resources. The winners of this award have achieved success in greening their own organization and have also assisted others who are committed to improving their environmental performance. Forty-one Premier healthcare organizations were also honored by PGH across eight categories.
Premier’s commitment to sustainability is evidenced in the newly named GreenHealthy™ program. GreenHealthy includes the Premier’s EPP (environmentally preferable purchasing) program, an internal corporate-wide Yes to Green program, and a new collaborative climate and energy initiative to help hospitals reduce energy use and cost called SPHERE, Securing Proven Healthcare Energy Reduction (for the) Ecosystem.
“Premier is pleased to be recognized by this prestigious award as we continue to help our member hospitals and health systems adopt environmentally sound business practices,” said Rick Norling, president and CEO, Premier. “This award firmly establishes Premier as a leader in healthcare, setting the bar for industry commitment to environmentally preferable purchasing and healthcare practices.”
Premier’s members have been very creative in finding ways to be green, said Gina Pugliese, vice president, Premier Safety Institute. “Premier’s members are proactively taking environmentally friendly actions, including composting of organic materials, recycling of floor coverings, lab solvents, and construction waste, purchasing organically grown foods, using foodware made of bio-based materials, and increasing use of energy efficient LED lighting,” Pugliese said.
The Champion for Change Award is presented annually by PGH, an industry-wide collaborative effort, designed to enhance workplace and environmental health and safety. Premier’s Champion for Change Award is a result of the combined efforts of Premier Purchasing Partners, the Premier Safety Institute and Premier members and suppliers to identify environmentally preferable products, packaging and services. The awards will be presented today at the 2008 PGH Environmental Excellence Awards ceremony in Pittsburgh.
A key award selection factor was the Premier Safety Institute’s suite of educational offerings – both for Premier member healthcare institutions, as well as the greater industry. The Premier Safety Institute, the nation’s most recognized resource on hospital safety issues, receives more than 5 million hits annually.
Safety Institute tools are available at www.premierinc.com/safety. The Safety Institute provides Web-based tools and resources for establishing green – or environmentally sound – programs and practices. Green Corner, another Premier Web resource, showcases hospital and supplier success stories about green initiatives that contribute to a safer, healthier community.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that hospitals use more than twice as much energy per square foot as office buildings and as a group, consume almost 50 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and spend almost $3 billion each year on electricity alone. If hospitals improved their energy efficiency by an average of 30 percent, the annual electricity savings would be close to $1 billion, and 11 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide would be emitted – the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the road.
In an effort to continue to address these critical energy issues, Premier will be announcing a new collaborative to reduce healthcare’s carbon footprint. The new program, called SPHERE (Securing Proven Healthcare Energy Reduction for the Ecosystem), will focus on reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the use of cleaner, renewable energy.