{"id":9496,"date":"2024-07-19T15:16:59","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T19:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/sustainability\/?p=9496"},"modified":"2025-03-17T16:02:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T20:02:31","slug":"three-decades-of-going-green-at-urmc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/sustainability\/three-decades-of-going-green-at-urmc\/","title":{"rendered":"Three decades of going green at URMC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.mc.rochester.edu\/urmc-today\/get-to-know-our-ceo-and-dean\/\">Article originally posted on the URMC intranet (login required)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">You may have seen the EV charging stations pop up in the parking garage or the energy-efficient temperature controls in newer Medical Center buildings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">But many of the environmentally friendly accomplishments at the Medical Center might not be so obvious. Yet together, these efforts have us ahead of many similar institutions across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">Consider the<em>\u00a02023 Sustainability Benchmark Data for Healthcare\u00a0<\/em>report, released by Practice Greenhealth. The group, a leading membership and networking organization for sustainable health care, publishes the report to guide health institutions in sustainability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">Nearly 200 hospitals documented their practices in the report, said Mark Schwartz CHFM, CHC, executive director of URMC Facilities Operations. \u201cWe have implemented a majority of these sustainability practices,\u201d he explained, \u201cwith some items having been implemented over 25 years ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">Even a partial list shows the wide scope of our efforts:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We recycle hundreds of tons of cardboard and other recyclable materials annually.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We have treated our medical waste &#8220;on-site&#8221; since 1998 and will restart the practice once the new emergency room tower is complete.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We use reusable sharp containers, saving tens of thousands of pounds of plastics each year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We minimize and then environmentally manage our pharmaceutical wastes leaving the facility.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We have green cleaning programs in many areas of the Medical Center, including low-maintenance, &#8220;no-wax&#8221; flooring to eliminate harmful VOC\u00a0gases and the need for chemical surface treatments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We eliminated ozone-producing\u00a0equipment more than 20 years ago.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We stopped the use of mercury-filled devices and other hazardous materials.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We reduced kitchen waste and incorporated compostable products while adding in locally grown and produced food products\u2014including organic options.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We implement green initiatives in the ORs to reduce the amount of regulated medical waste being generated, and we\u2019ve piloted the use of third-party, FDA-approved instrument reprocessing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We manage our own Energy Management Group, using rebate incentives for LED lighting, setback schedules,\u00a0and improvements to lighting controls.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">We incorporated water-conservation technologies to minimize building water use.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">\u201cWhile our programs at the Medical Center can always be improved,\u00a0we have already accomplished much more than most people realize,\u201d said Schwartz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">According to Amy Kadrie, UR Sustainability senior manager, we\u2019re taking advantage of funding opportunities through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to optimize our buildings and to do \u201cretro commissioning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">The goal is to reduce wasted energy usage and improve occupants&#8217; comfort. So there\u2019s a sustainability payoff while also improving our work environments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">These building improvements include updating and\/or reprograming controls and implementing climate schedules to make the buildings operate more efficiently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">Among these more efficient buildings are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">Golisano Children&#8217;s Hospital<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">Ambulatory Care Facility<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">Wilmot Cancer Center<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">Kornberg Medical Research Building<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">Del Monte Institute<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"normal\">Helen Wood Hall<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">Waste minimization, tree plantings, fleet management, and other initiatives are part of the efforts as well. With the current Strong expansion project, most of the waste\u2014including hundreds of tons of metal, concrete, and landfill scrap generated by demolition and construction\u2014has been\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.urmc.rochester.edu\/news\/story\/300-tons-of-old-building-how-strong-memorial-s-ed-demolition-is-surprisingly-sustainable\">recycled and reused<\/a>.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">The University also maintains a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/sustainability\/take-action\/employees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">webpage<\/a>\u00a0to help employees connect with ways to support sustainable practices at work. The page includes information about the Green Reps program, a university-wide effort that includes employees from the Medical Center. Green Reps serve as advocates, liaisons, and educators to further our sustainability work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">Meanwhile, the work continues. One of the latest ideas to minimize waste is a pilot project on medical gloves, to reduce the amount sent to the landfill. If the pilot is successful, the next step would be to update our gloving policy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">New technologies continue to be piloted and evaluated to help our hospitals manage organic waste more sustainably. And in the future, URMC will continue to improve networks for reusing and recycling used medical equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"normal\">\u201cThere is still plenty to do in the near term,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cBut we are strongly engaged as an institution and working hard towards a more sustainable future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Article originally posted on the URMC intranet (login required) You may have seen the EV charging stations pop up in the parking garage or the energy-efficient temperature controls in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":9506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - 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