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How do you track your energy and waste data?
Have you created your own amazing spreadsheet? Is it part of a proprietary management software program? Is Portfolio Manager® or RETScreen® part of your tracking protocol?
Sadly, we know some sites don’t even track this data on a regular basis. Please let us know IF you track these numbers and what method you use to record the data.
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Take part in an important project by sharing your experiences with reusable PPE!
The confidential survey seeks to gather health care workers' experiences and opinions on the comfort, safety and satisfaction of reusable PPE, in particular: reusable gowns, reusable elastomeric respirators, goggles, and face shields.
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Meet our new Sustainability Champion - Dentec Safety Specialists Inc.
Dentec Safety Specialists Inc. is a leading manufacturer and distributor of safety products in North America. Dentec is dedicated to providing the highest quality safety products and solutions delivering enhanced value and comfort for the industrial, safety, food service, janitorial/sanitation, automotive aftermarket, and health care sectors.
Their reusable Comfort-Air®Nx elastomeric respirator has been shipped around the world to assist health care and general industry workers in stoping the spread of COVID-19. The Comfort-Air®Nx provides a better fit and an air-tight seal for all face shapes and sizes. The N95 and P100 filters can be disinfected, are reusable for one year (use dependent), contributing to 95% waste reduction and 90% cost savings versus disposable respirators.
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**If your for-profit organisation has made a serious corporate commitment to making health care more sustainable, you too can become recognized as a green health 2022 Sustainability Champion by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care.
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Celebrating Canada's Nurses!
Have you been inspired, encouraged or empowered by an employee or a colleague? Have you or a loved one been touched by the care and compassion of an outstanding nurse? Do you know a nurse who has gone above and beyond the call of duty?
Hospital News will once again salute nursing heroes through our annual National Nursing Week (May 9th to 15th) awards. Nominations can be submitted by patients, patient family members, colleagues or managers.
Please submit your Nursing Hero Story by April 1st, 2022 and make sure your entry contains the following information:
- full name of the nurse
- facility where he/she worked at a time
- Your contact information
- Your nursing hero story
- At least 500 words highlighting how they have gone above and beyond the call of duty
Along with having their story published the winners will take home cash prizes: 1st prize $1500, 2nd prize $1000, 3rd prize $500.
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Short courses in sustainability, health and health care
The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare's training courses offer a mix of core concepts and case studies, followed by live online workshops with expert advice on applying theory to practice in your setting.
Designed for health professionals, educators, sustainability or estates managers, the courses prepare you to implement sustainability projects in your workplace, conduct research and contribute to developing and delivering your organisation’s Green Plan.
The course format included a self-study period, a small group online workshop and sustainable health care cafés in which participants can build networks and receive advice from experts and peers on sustainability projects.
They offer multiple multidisciplinary or specialty specific foundation-level courses which are available at varying dates/times.
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CHES 2022 Awards - Call for Nominations
CHES is seeking nominations for their 2022 Awards. Members are reminded to nominate a deserving member or facility for one of these prestigious awards today!
This award is presented to a resident of Canada as a mark of recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of health care engineering.
Candidates must be members of CHES and the achievements can be either a series of contributions or one outstanding contribution.
This award recognizes facilities that have had outstanding success in the completion of a major capital project, an energy efficiency program, an environmental stewardship program, or in a team building exercise.
Deadline for submissions:
April 30th, 2022
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Call for submissions - Canadian Healthcare Facilities Summer Issue
The Summer issue of CHES's Journal, Canadian Healthcare Facilities (CHF), will once again highlight CHES member success stories. This year's special feature section builds on the theme of the FHE 2022 Congress/CHES 2022 National Conference — Unleashing Innovation: Healthcare Innovation Excellence.
CHES members who are interested in sharing their story are encouraged to contact the Journal's editor, Clare Tattersall at claret@mediaedge.ca with the proposed topic.
All topics must be pre-approved by the Editor prior to article submission.
The deadline for final article submissions is Monday June 6th, 2022.
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Summer Institute on Sustainable Health Systems
CASCADES
We invite trainees from relevant programs studying at Canadian universities to become part of the transformative change to make our health systems less harmful to health, and to adapt to the health, health equity and health system impacts of climate change.
The Summer Institute on Sustainable Health Systems will provide health services and policy trainees (HSP) (including health care professional, public health, and health management trainees with an interest in health services and policy) with the opportunity to increase awareness of sustainable health systems and current action in Canada. Trainees will develop knowledge, leadership skills and capabilities and build a professional, interdisciplinary network of students and professionals with interests in the area of
sustainable health systems.
The Summer Institute will be held in person and virtually from June 20-23rd , 2022.
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A BIG thank you to SaveOnEnergy for their continued financial support for the Ontario Green Health Care Award and the Ontario Energy Behaviour Award.
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Climate resilience for health care and communities: Strategies and case studies
Health Care Without Harm
A new Health Care Without Harm paper provides a strategic framework for building truly climate-resilient health systems and communities, and explores how health care institutions can leverage investments to support equitable decarbonization and build community resilience, health, and wealth. Through case studies, this paper outlines actions health systems can take to improve their ability to adapt and recover from climate-driven service impacts, strengthen long-term sustainability, and support health and equity in the communities they serve.
As anchor institutions, health systems have both a responsibility and an economic self-interest in making sure their communities are healthy, safe, and climate resilient. Health care institutions can leverage their social, political and economic influence to address social and environmental determinants of health and help communities improve their ability to adapt to and recover from climate impacts. It is essential to the long-term sustainability of health care and public health that health care institutions partner with the communities they serve to assess and address climate vulnerabilities.
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Nursing: The critical need to address climate change and to protect health
Journal of Nursing Scholarship
Unless one has been living in a self-imposed bubble, one cannot have failed to notice the increased prominence of news about climate change. We are now living through a health and social emergency era that involved climate change, global warming, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of greenhouse gas on climate change and the rising temperature of the Earth are leading us all down a slippery slope to eventual human extinction unless all countries make a determined and collective effort.
Perhaps without realizing it, health professionals, including nurses, have dealt with the effects of environmental change on population health for decades. Health practices are increasingly engaged in the care of people who are suffering the effects of extreme weather events: hurricanes/cyclones, flooding, dust storms, wildfires, periods of extreme heat, food and water insecurity, polluted air, and prolonged droughts, as well as habitat loss and deforestation.
"As our planet faces disasters from climate change and rising global temperature, health professionals everywhere have a moral responsibility to act to avoid this."
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Tackling climate change includes seeking equitable mental health care
Yale Climate Connections
As climate change drives extreme events and long-term changes to Earth’s environment, the physical impacts on human health – deaths caused by high temperatures, respiratory illnesses brought about by wildfire smoke, and more – are on the rise. But anxiety, stress, and other mental health impacts of these changes are harder to track.
Still, as extreme weather events accelerate and people around the world become more aware of the planet’s climate future, researchers and health professionals are documenting an uptick in associated mental health stress.
Tackling climate change requires transformation of behaviours and of the economy, but this level of change can be achieved only through political pressure from a critical mass of individuals and communities spanning demographics, socio-economic status, and geographies. Achieving and sustaining that level of action requires that a majority of those people not be incapacitated by climate anxiety or despair.
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Canada support new legally binding global agreement on plastics as UN meeting kicks off in Kenya
Cision
The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and the Canadian delegation are supporting the development of a new ambitious and legally binding global agreement that takes a full life cycle approach to address plastic pollution.
Unsustainable plastic production and consumption, and the associated waste generated, are accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The global impacts of an exponential increase in plastic production are manifested in many areas of the environment and the global plastic pollution crisis is increasingly affecting people and the planet.
A coordinated approach with targeted, ambitious, and sustained action is needed to address plastic pollution globally. A strong resolution at UNEA would launch the necessary process to bring the international community together to enact global change by focusing efforts to tackle plastic pollution across all stages of the plastics life cycle through a binding agreement.
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Climate Change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC has finalized the second part of the Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
This report, released on February 27th, 2022 recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies and integrates knowledge more strongly across the natural, ecological, social and economic sciences than earlier IPCC assessments.
Most notably the report shows climate change is a serious threat to the planet and human well-being and warns of multiple unavoidable climate hazards. In order to avoid a devastating loss of life, biodiversity, and infrastructure the IPCC report demands accelerated action and rapid cuts in green house gas emissions.
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Understanding Indigenous foodways to work towards healing and reconcilitation
Nourish
On February 17th, Nourish Indigenous Program Manager Mair Greenfield spoke with clinicians and students at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine. She shared about Nourish's history of work in highlighting Indigenous foodways in health care, and invited participants to join the Food is Our Medicine online course.
In this webinar Greenfield shares the power of food in working towards healing and reconciliation in health care. At Nourish Greenfield is working with over 700 individuals across the country to deepen understanding of Indigenous foodways and perspectives on well-being.
Nourish is a non-profit working with leaders to build health for both people and the planet, starting with the hospital tray.
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Finding the 'true value' of food can drive innovation across sectors
Stanford Social Innovation Review
The best social sector solutions are the ones that address multiple challenges at once. Food systems transformation touches on many different global crises: climate, health, nutrition, economic self-determination, even the pandemic. However, for decades, the cooperatives, social entrepreneurs, small farmers, and government agencies working to build sustainable, healthy food systems have been doing so with one hand tied behind their backs.
We are competing in a skewed marketplace with misguided incentives, to produce the most possible food at the cheapest price, regardless of the impacts on climate, health, workers’ rights, or equitable distribution.
“True Cost Accounting” (TCA) helps to level the playing field, as well as serving as proof of concept that food systems transformation can accelerate progress across a host of global challenges.
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Effort to boost electric vehicle charging stations in GTHA gets $2M in new federal funding
CBC News
A Toronto non-profit has partnered with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to create a fund to make it easier for municipalities and agencies to build electric vehicle charging stations.
The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) says the initiative, announced Tuesday, is being dubbed the "EV Station Fund" and will support the installation of up to 300 charging stations.
"We have $2 million in new funding to be made available for a lot of groups across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area to build our electric vehicle charging infrastructure," said Ian Klesmer, director of strategy and grants with TAF.
The funding comes more than two years after the City of Toronto launched its own electric vehicle strategy. While the city says it's still on track to meet some of its goals, some say it needs to ramp up the installation of charging stations significantly to encourage more people to make the transition to electric vehicles.
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Three Canadian utilities announce plans for spate of public EV chargers
Electric Autonomy
In back-to-back-to-back announcements, Alberta’s Epcor Utilities, Saskatchewan’s SaskPower and Ontario’s Alectra Utilities say they have received or set aside funding to install hundreds of public Level 2 and DC fast chargers across Saskatchewan and in parts of Ontario to provide more charging options for highway EV drivers and those in underserviced areas.
Alectra and Epcor are receiving $2 million apiece from Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) Zero-Emissions Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP) to finance the installation of 340 and 200 EV charging stations (both Level 2 and DC fast chargers), respectively. SaskPower is investing $2 million in the SaskPower Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program to install 20 DC fast stations along highway corridors in the province.
“One of the best ways we can cut pollution and fight climate change is by making the switch to electric vehicles,” said Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change in a press release.
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A case study in world-class energy efficiency
Climate Challenge Network
Greening Health Care has announced the case study of Humber River Hospital, which now ranks number two in their international database of the most energy efficient major acute care hospitals.
It exemplifies the use of energy targets to drive exceptional design and operations, and contains a wealth of information for use by other hospitals in embedding high performance at the organizational, facility and building system levels.
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Version 8.1 of the RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software platform has been released with an array of new features. It is now available for download from the RETScreen website HERE.
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EVENTS, TRAINING AND WEBINARS |
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Climate, health and health care: A speaker series for health professional learners |
Climate change has profound implications for health and health care. But health care professional trainees often have little to no exposure to climate and sustainability topics during their training.
This series of six one-hour sessions will introduce students to the impact of climate change on health and health equity, what this means for health care, and how we can advocate and promote a more
resilient and sustainable health system in a low carbon world. Each session will either be run by a single speaker or speaker panel who will share their experiences pertaining to climate, health and health care, followed by a live Q&A session.
The next session is The impact of climate change on the delivery of care on Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 4pm PST / 7pm EST / 8pm AST.
Organized in partnership by UofT Green Meds, CASCADES, the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment (CANE), the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), and the Canadian Federation of Medical Students (CFMS) Health and Environment Adaptive Response Task force (HEART).
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Seminar series: Research needs for a climate positive health system |
The Centre for Sustainable Health Systems is hosting a series of seminars, funded by the Connaught Global Challenge Award to develop an International Research Network for Climate Positive Care (IRNCPC).
This seminar series aims to provoke new thinking on critical issues relevant to climate positive health systems while engaging a wide range of disciplinary communities in considering research opportunities at the intersection of sustainability and healthcare.
Please find below a list of the confirmed dates and topics. Visit their Seminar Series page for more information.
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Destination CleanMed 2022 Webinar Series
Topic: Climate-smart health system strategies (90 minutes)
Learn how leading health systems are implementing climate-smart strategies to reduce their carbon footprint and prepare their facilities and communities for climate impacts.
Members of the U.S. Health Care Climate Council will share their experience setting and implementing net-zero goals, electrifying their facilities, and investing in community climate resilience.
Date: March 17th, 2022
Time: 12:00 PM EST
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Planetary Health on the menu: Sustainability in food & nutrition careers
Join the Planetary Health Collective for this one-of-a-kind panel series in which they sit down with leaders and change-makers who have succeeded in merging their passions for human and environmental health into an unconventional career in food and nutrition.
This event is open for all who recognize the power of food for transformational change in both human and environmental health, regardless of experience in the field.
The next session will be on March 15th, 2022 at 7:30 PM EST.
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HealthADAPT Webinar: Tools and Information for Scaling-Up Health Adaptation
Join HealthADAPT for an exciting session on: Launching new tools and frameworks to quantify health outcomes from climate change mitigation and adaption actions; and, opportunities for assessing, communicating and building capacity to protect health from climate change.
Date: March 22nd, 2022
Time: 1:00 - 2:30 PM EST
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RETScreen® is a Clean Energy Management Software system for energy efficiency, renewable energy and cogeneration project feasibility analysis as well as ongoing energy performance analysis.
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Have you registered as an organ donor?
Contact your local organ donation agency and speak to your family about your wishes. You have the power to save and transform lives.
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The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care is Canada’s premier green health care resource network, leading the evolution of green in Canada’s health sector as a national voice and catalyst for environmental change. www.greenhealthcare.ca
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Some articles referred to in the Digest make reference to services and/or product offerings from specific suppliers. The CCGHC recommends that readers research the service and product offerings available through a wider range of suppliers for comparison purposes and in keeping with public sector purchasing guidelines. These articles should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any product or service. |
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