[Oh, we’re green all right, George, but it’s from nausea and probably not exactly what you had in mind. Sorry we can’t join you in celebrating when Kaiser members are dying.]
Dear KP Colleague,
So what are we celebrating this week? KP as the “Queen of Green.”
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Green Electronic Council named Kaiser Permanente a “Green Electronics Champion.” Kaiser Permanente is the first and only health care organization that the EPA has honored with this award for “going green.”
This week, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) held Kaiser Permanente up as an example of how green building and purchasing practices can have a positive impact not only on health care but also on the U.S. economy.
Those are just the two most recent examples of how green we are.
So how green are we?
We’re pretty green.
Our organization actually has deep green roots. Four decades ago, we invited Rachel Carson, author of the groundbreaking book “Silent Spring,” to Kaiser Permanente to deliver a seminal address to a large group of our physicians and scientists. Her powerful book ? which exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT – has been widely credited for launching today’s environmental movement. We promoted that book at that time, because we believed healthy people needed a healthy environment.
Our actions have followed in that pathway ever since. We should celebrate our greenness.
We have led the way in green building, environmentally responsible purchasing and “sustainable operations.” By sustainable operations, I’m referring to our deliberate and on-going efforts to divert waste from landfills, eliminate mercury from our health care operations and end the purchase and disposal of hazardous chemicals. Our mercury elimination projects set the standard for our entire industry.
It is important for us to be leaders in environmental stewardship.
Health care facilities in the United States generate nearly five billion pounds of waste per year that pose occupational and environmental threats. In addition, health care accounts for 11 percent of all commercial energy use in America and is a major water consumer. Because of the intensity of our energy use, the US health care sector is the second largest contributor to carbon dioxide pollution, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming.
Our recent achievements in each of these areas are sizeable. In the past 5 years, for example, we have chosen ecologically sustainable materials for 2.7 million square meters in new construction. We have prevented the release of 70 billion pounds of air pollutants each year. We have saved more than $10 million per year through energy conservation strategies. And we have installed more than 50 acres of reflective roofing.
Our organization is also improving our communities’ carbon footprint by supporting local farmers. We promote healthy local food by sponsoring 38 farmers’ markets around the country. We are piloting the use of local fruits and vegetables on a seasonal basis to our patients in Northern California. This year, we will buy 50 to 60 tons of healthy food that is local, pesticide-free and farmed using sustainable methods. It’s another great learning opportunity for us. We plan to expand that program in the years ahead. Our members and our communities will benefit.
Major media outlets and leading environmental groups have recognized Kaiser Permanente for our green leadership. Stories about our green building, sustainable food policies and environmental achievements have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and on NPR, among many other publications and broadcast outlets.
We have received quite a few awards for our greenness. I mentioned the one we received this month. We also recently became the first health care organization to earn the distinction of “Climate Action Leader,” when we agreed to publicly report our 2005 and 2006 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with the California Climate Action Registry. The Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility gave us the Socially Responsible Medicine Award earlier this year for our green successes and Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) gave a “Making Medicine Mercury Free Award” to 24 KP medical centers in California.
These programs have not been accidental. We work at it. In 2001, Kaiser Permanente leaders came together to form an internal Environmental Stewardship Council and to provide a framework for incorporating environmentally responsible practices across the organization.
The collaborative effort to be green has been especially timely and powerful because we are in the midst of multiple building projects. That gives us a lot of purchasing leverage. We are investing approximately $24 billion in 4,000 current and upcoming construction projects between now and 2014. For these projects, we will be following 176 environmentally-friendly design standards as we aim at building some of the greenest medical facilities in the country. We are able to do this and still have our construction costs about 5% below the industry average.
A prime example is our Modesto Medical Center, which earned national recognition this year as one of the greenest health care construction projects in North America. Solar panels on top of the Modesto Medical Office Building (MOB) produce electricity and pump it back into the grid, generating enough energy for 10 to 20 homes. The parking lot there is paved with permeable asphalt, which allows water to percolate through the surface and recharge the ground water table. This prevents flooding. Because it eliminated the need to connect to the local waste water management infrastructure, it also saved $290,000. Green can be very win-win when smart people take it on as an agenda.
Going green often makes good business sense. Like the switch to permeable asphalt in Modesto, we’re seeing that many of our environmentally friendly changes are actually helping us “Bend the Trend.” Another example is our elimination of mercury from medical facilities. Because we led the way in finding viable alternatives to mercury, we avoided the risk of mercury spills. These spills can run at a cost of $250,000 per incident. That’s not including any medical treatment for exposure to mercury.
We’re also saving roughly $300,000 per new medical center by replacing PVC pipe with safer HDPD (polyethylene). PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, is a dangerous and environmentally-unfriendly plastic material that is used widely in the health care industry. When manufactured and disposed of, it creates dioxins, the most potent carcinogens known, as well as other compounds that may cause severe health problems, including cancer and birth defects. We deliberately make construction choices that do not use PVC. We also set a new national standard for environmentally safe hospital carpets — and managed to get manufacturers to change production specifications because we can buy in such volume.
Those taking care of patients in our medical centers are also making a huge difference. For example, as we replace our traditional x-ray equipment with digital imaging machines, we’re reducing both toxins and greenhouse gases. We just take x-rays for granted as a fact of medical life. What people don’t think about is the fact that processing x-ray film uses very corrosive chemicals. The film itself contains silver, a toxic heavy metal. We’re also saving water and energy that was used to dispose of these water-polluting chemicals. By doing digital imaging rather than x-rays, we expect to save over 154 million gallons a year of potable water just because we don’t need all of those chemicals for processing our images. We have already converted Northern California and Southern California is following suit as we speak.
On October 17, we will be helping to share our green learning with other health care organizations as we launch a new collaboration called the Global Health and Safety Initiative that aims to improve worker, patient and environmental safety. We’ll be joined by senior leaders from major health systems, leading non-governmental organizations, government agencies and Group Purchasing Organizations to discuss specific ways we can, together, advance health care’s contribution to creating a cleaner and safer environment.
I personally have been a member of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, The Wilderness Society, Nature Conservancy, and a number of local “green” organizations for years ? so when I was looking at Kaiser Permanente as a place to work, Kaiser’s long-time “greenness” was a major draw for me.
We are not perfect. We make mistakes and we have our missteps in various places ? but our overall level of greenness goes right to our sense of who we are and what we do.
We want everyone to Thrive. It takes a healthy environment for that to happen. So think green. Turn off unneeded lights. Avoid unnecessary energy usage. Look for opportunities to make a difference. If you haven’t seen Al Gore’s movie, get a copy and watch it. It’s a message we all need to take to heart. This is the only planet we have.
So be well ? and be green.
Let me hear from you.
George