A Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care Initiative |
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Follow us on social media! |
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Meet Autumn, the Coalition's newest team member
Autumn is a recent graduate from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. She is passionate about creating sustainable communities and believes it is essential to provide institutions with the knowledge, skills and resources to feel supported and confident in their efforts to be more environmentally responsible. Autumn creates meaningful engagement opportunities by connecting our members, stakeholders and partners to resources, best practices and new opportunities in green health care.
We are excited to have her on our team and look forward to doing some great work together!
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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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CASCADES Eastern Canada Regional Project Coordinator |
CASCADES and the Dalhousie Healthy Populations Institute are recruiting for the position of CASCADES Eastern Canada Regional Coordinator.
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CASCADES is seeking proposals from teams of health professionals, administrators, and/or leaders in the Canadian health care system who wish to partner with CASCADES to develop and test sustainable health care innovations that reduce the climate impact of health care or the health care system or increase climate resilience in their settings. These can include service delivery and system design innovations. Selected innovations will be feasible, impactful, and have the potential for spread to other settings across the country.
Expression of Interest Deadline: February 28, 2022, 5 PM ET
Invitation to Submit Full Application Notification date: March 18, 2022, 5 PM ET
Full Application Deadline: April 15, 2022, 5 PM ET
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Aiming for Action - The competition that gives voice to inspiring environmental initiatives |
CALLING ALL YOUTH!
Young Canadians are getting more and more involved in matters of the environment. Through the Aiming for Action program, they will be given a voice to bring their green initiatives to the forefront for the benefit of their communities and all Canadians.
Aiming for Action will recognize one individual between the ages of 14 and 18, and one individual between the ages of 19 and 30. Grants of $500 and $1,500 will be awarded for their valuable environmental efforts and achievements.
This contest is for you if you are a citizen or permanent resident of Canada, between the ages of 14 and 30 inclusive at the time the award is granted on March 21st 2022, and have worked on an environmental initiative with a positive impact!
If you have a young member of your household who would like to participate, registration is open until February 10th.
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Complimentary courses for Ontarians |
Enabling skilled trades and pandemic response through standards education - The Canadian Standards Association, in collaboration with the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development (MLTSD), is providing access to complimentary e-learning to Ontario residents to reduce the burden of compliance and assist with economic recovery.
Register for courses by March 30, 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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An Agenda for Action on Planetary Health
Doctors for Planetary Health - West Coast
Physicians, nurses, and other health professionals, are already seeing the devastating impacts of the climate and ecological crises in offices, in hospitals, and in communities ravaged by forest fires, crop failure, habitat loss, and water scarcity. In addition to the deadly heat dome, which caused the premature death of at least 595 people in B.C., health professionals saw patients with wildfire-related respiratory and cardiovascular distress, and they are seeing patients from all walks of life experiencing signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety related to the climate emergency. And now, of course, they are seeing the health impacts of the recent devastating rains and floods across much of B.C.
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Practising health care as if the planet matters
Dr. Trevor Hancock
The Doctors for Planetary Health-West Coast rally was timed to coincide with the COP26, the United Nation’s climate change conference in Glasgow, where for the first time – and at the behest of the U.K. government – health was one of three science priority areas.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) was at the centre of this work, offering an extensive set of events and initiatives. This included the release of an open letter signed by 600 organizations representing 46 million health professionals that identified the climate crisis as the single biggest health threat humanity faces; a Global Conference on Health and Climate Change; and the release of a WHO report on the health argument for climate action.
Recognized in this report was - in the words of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO - that in the face of climate change “protecting health requires action well beyond the health sector, in energy, transport, nature, food systems, finance and more.” But it also requires action by the health sector itself, which is a significant contributor to climate change, and more broadly to ecological harm.
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Climate change: How radiologists can help
Health care worldwide accounts for five percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and Canada is one of the worst offenders in the world.
From the perspective of our own specialty, the environmental footprint of imaging departments is not small. Possible mitigating actions range from easy-to-implement changes to larger scale longer term strategies requiring multidisciplinary stakeholder involvement.
As Canada is committed to reducing emissions by 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030, it will be essential for health care facilities, including diagnostic imaging, to assess and mitigate power consumption wherever possible.
As we transition to a low carbon world, radiologists have an opportunity to be leaders, in our personal lives with individual and collective action and in our professional lives by engaging our hospitals and industry partners in mitigating our power consumption, addressing waste, and lowering our emissions.
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Nurses Climate Challenge
Health Care without Harm
The Nurses Climate Challenge is a national campaign to mobilize nurses to educate 50,000 health professionals on the impacts of climate change on human health.
Together with other Nurse Climate Champions from across the country, you have the power to launch a movement of health professionals committed to taking action to protect the health of their patients and communities from the worst impacts of climate change.
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Engagement on Canada's 2030 Emission Reduction Plan - Public Submission Portal |
Hearing Canadian’s ideas and perspectives is essential to building an effective plan to reach net-zero and to achieve Canada’s emissions reductions target to reduce emissions by 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030.
The Government of Canada is welcoming input from all interested Canadians on how we can best reduce emissions in order to achieve these ambitious goals.
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Canada's emissions plan for 2030 targets to be released in spring 2022 as strategic consultations begin
The federal government is following through on its commitment to study the advisability of a zero-emissions vehicles sales mandate and identifying targets for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales by launching a series of consultations that will focus on these key items.
Consultations will help inform Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction plan — the roadmap for how the federal government will achieve its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. The plan is underway, but the consultations — which will begin before the end of 2021 — will push the public disclosure off by three months, says Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
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Cities' accelerating shift to zero-emission transportation keeps Canada's climate goals in sight
Many Canadian cities, big and small, are escalating the urgency and ambition of their actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. While climate events like the COP26 climate conference put the spotlight on national strategies, it falls to cities — led by their mayors and other champions — to use planning and energy policies to do much of the work. And as they do, electrification of transportation is playing a key role.
“Reaching net-zero means scaling up local innovation in energy, buildings, waste and transportation — and electric vehicles are central to that,” says Carole Saab, CEO of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
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New Li-Cycle, Arrival recycling partnership to "close the loop" on battery life-cycle |
Ontario-based lithium-ion battery recycler, Li-Cycle, has secured another large-scale recycling partnership agreement with United Kingdom-based electric vehicle manufacturer, Arrival.
Li-Cycle’s Chief Strategy Officer, Kunal Phalpher, says the partnership’s goals are improving the recyclability of Arrival’s EV batteries and ensuring that the recovered products end up recycling into Arrival’s new vehicles. The deal was announced at the end of November.
Arrival plans to produce lightweight, modular commercial EVs including commuter buses, commercial vans such as UPS delivery vehicles, and ride-share cars. The automaker is targeting high mileage vehicles that contribute considerably to pollution and emissions.
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UK's first Passivhaus NHS Health Center Achieves Certification
Passivhaus Trust
Health estate makes up four to five percent of England's carbon footprint. Foleshill Health Centre in Coventry is the first National Health Service (NHS) building to achieve Passivhaus certification, striving to redefine health centre design in the UK. The award-winning building contributes to the NHS Carbon Footprint Plus ambitions, providing an affordable design framework that can be replicated at speed and scale across the whole of the NHS estate and the UK.
This design framework created by Passivhaus team members has key aims to:
- Provide healthy indoor environments to benefit patients and staff
- Improve energy-efficiency of traditional health care facilities
- Offer financially viable solution over building's lifecycle
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Solar and Wind Project Feasibility and Performance Assessment with RETScreen® Expert Energy Management Software
Cenertec - Centro de Energia e Tecnologia is offering a RETScreen® Expert Software course online in English starting January 18, 2022 - Solar and Wind Project Feasibility and Performance Assessment with RETScreen® Expert Software.
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EVENTS, TRAINING AND WEBINARS |
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Join Us in the New Year for Canada's COP26 Health Programme Commitment - What's Next?
Canada signed onto the World Health Organisation's (WHO) COP26 Health Programme, thus formally committing to climate
resilient and low carbon, sustainable health systems. Now what?
Join Dr. Courtney Howard, Dr. Nick Watts and host Professor Fiona Miller for the first of three webinars exploring the implications of the federal government’s recent commitment to the COP26 Health Programme.
Speakers Dr. Courtney Howard and Dr. Nick Watts have the insiders’ perspective on what this commitment means for Canada. Dr. Howard was instrumental in the movement to encourage Canada to sign on to the Health Programme and will speak to the significance of this milestone, how we got here, and what comes next for Canada. As the Chief Sustainability Officer of the National Health Service (NHS) England, the first health service in the world to commit to reaching net zero, Dr. Watts has first-hand experience with what it means to meet sustainability commitments through system-wide change. Join us as we start to explore what it will take for Canada to translate this commitment into on-the-ground transformation.
Date: Monday, January 31, 2022
Time: 12 pm - 1 pm ET
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Fundamentals of Sustainable Health Systems |
Registration for the February 2022 Fundamentals of Sustainable Health Systems online course is now open!
This is a professional education program for frontline staff, administrators, and leaders within care delivery, professional, and support organizations, with an interest in harnessing opportunities to achieve high quality, low carbon care.
Through interactive, transformative, and experiential learning in two afternoon Zoom sessions, participants will gain knowledge, develop skills, and forge collaborations that will help them advocate for and participate in a bottom-up and top-down shift toward a more environmentally sustainable health system.
Dates: Tuesday, February 8, 2022 and Thursday, February 10, 2022
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Used EV Incentive Program
Plug 'N Drive
Open to Ontario drivers only. The Used EV Incentive program provides $1,000 toward the purchase of a used fully electric car. Plug-in Hybrids do not qualify.
To be eligible, all applicants must attend a free online Used EV Incentive seminar.
Upcoming Seminars:
Thursday, January 20 - 3pm
Tuesday, January 25 - 7 pm
Thursday, February 3 - 3 pm
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Climate, health care and the Race to Zero: A call to action
Presented with the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education, this grand rounds session will highlight how the Global Roadmap for Health Care Decarbonization can help the health care sector meet the goals of the Race to Zero – to halve emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 – and why clinician leadership is critical in meeting this goal.
Date: Thursday, January 27
Time: 11:00 am ET
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How to engage hard-to-reach energy users - Case study examples from around the world
This webinar presents findings from a Cross-Country Case Study Comparison of over 20 case study analyses in eight countries, on how to engage hard-to-reach (HTR) energy users in the residential (vulnerable households) and non-residential (small business) sectors.
Date: Wednesday, January 19
Time: 10:00 am in Brussels
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Booking for booths at IFHE 2022 now open
"Unleashing Innovation: Healthcare Engineering Excellence"
IFHE 2022 Congress | CHES 2022 National Conference taking place September 17-21, 2022 in Toronto ON is now open. Booth space is limited.
Date: Saturday, September 12 - Wednesday, September 21, 2022
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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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