Going Green, Getting Into the Black
- Date: 6/19/2012 - 12:00 am
A California hospital aggressively seeks opportunities to reduce its environmental impact while cutting costs.
By Haydn Bush
Published June 19, 2012
H&HN (Hospitals & Health Networks)
At most hospitals, John Danby, the sustainability administrator for University of California-Davis Health System, says, "if somebody gets past 50 percent in [waste reduction], they have a big party." But UC-Davis has a steeper mandate to fulfill. As part of the University of California system, the hospital is tied to a system-wide pledge to achieve zero waste by 2020. Achieving that goal for a hospital will prove to be an extremely tall order, but Danby says there are plenty of creative ways to reduce its overall footprint while improving the bottom line.
"For any hospital in the environment we are in today, the easiest way to get traction with sustainability is to show a cost containment," Danby says.