Ron Joyce Children’s Health Centre awarded top performer as Green Hospital of the Year

In recognition of its commitment to environmental stewardship and greening its internal health care practices, the Ron Joyce Childrens’ Health Centre (RJCHC) at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) received this year’s Green Health Care Award for Green Hospital of the Year from the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care.

The award was presented based on data submitted to the 2021 Green Hospital Scorecard (GHS) program. The RJCHC had the highest score of all participating hospitals within their peer group.

The RJCHC is a LEED Gold facility that utilizes technologies such as LED Lighting, photo chromatic glass, magnetic bearing chillers for cooling, and fully condensing hot water boilers for heating – all technologies which contribute to a reduction in energy usage. The facility has a batteries and e-waste program in place, as well as a specialty recycling program for prosthetics plastics waste (which diverted approximately two metric tonnes over the past two years). In the past year, the facility saw increased waste diversion relative to landfill waste due to a decrease in building occupancy.

“Being acknowledged among our peers for our success in making our health care organization more environmentally sustainable is truly an honour,” said Kelly Campbell, VP Corporate Services and Capital Development. “On behalf of all our staff, I am very proud to be recognized as one of Canada’s leaders in driving health care’s greening agenda.”

The Green Hospital Scorecard is a comprehensive health care benchmarking tool that measures energy and water conservation, waste management and recycling, corporate commitment, and pollution prevention. Participating hospitals report on their environmental and sustainability initiatives through an online questionnaire and the resulting Scorecard summarizes their environmental performance relative to their peers.

The award was presented by the Coalition’s Executive Director Neil Ritchie, at the Coalition’s virtual awards ceremony on September 21.

About the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care
The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care is recognized as Canada’s premier, integrated green resource network driving leadership in environmentally-sustainable health care practices. A national not-for-profit, the Coalition is a catalyst for environmental change encouraging the adoption of resource conservation and climate change resiliency practices, pollution prevention principles and effective environmental management systems to reduce the Canadian health care sector’s ecological impact while protecting human health. To learn more, visit www.greenhealthcare.ca.