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H2E Partners Sample Goals
While Partner activities are entirely voluntary and can vary significantly, you may wish to adopt some of the goals and activities provided below, as appropriate to your organization.
Healthcare Facility Partners
General Goal: To reduce your use of mercury and other toxic substances in your operations, and to reduce the volume and toxicity of waste generated by your facility. To help create a national movement for environmental sustainability in health care by tracking, documenting and sharing your success with others.
Activities
- Increase recycling rates to 20% of total waste volume (or higher!).
- Reduce RMW generation to less than 5 pounds per bed per day.
- Establish environmental policies to guide operational practices.
- Add language to all staff job descriptions regarding environmental responsibility, and include environmental issues and practices in all new hire training.
- Contract with responsible waste management, medical waste treatment and recycling services.
- Transition to a reusable sharps container program, significantly reducing Regulated Medical Waste.
- Recycle all fluorescent bulbs regardless of green tip status.
- Investigate reprocessing services where appropriate, to drastically reduce waste generation and conserve resources.
- Implement a best management practices approach to handling hazardous pharmaceutical waste.
- Integrate green building approaches and materials into any renovation or new construction projects.
- Implement a Green Cleaning program to improve indoor air quality and reduce worker and patient exposures.
- Implement a food waste composting program.
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Vendor Partners
General Goal: To train customers/clients in the environmental and economic benefits of reducing waste volumes and toxicity, increasing water- and energy efficiency, and eliminating the use of mercury-containing products and hazardous chemicals, and to encourage customers/ clients to connect with H2E's programs to reduce the overall environmental impact of their facility operations.
Vendor Activities
- Provide objectively verified environmentally preferable products or services.
- Host teleconference roundtables for health care customers.
- Train sales staff to include environmental issues in discussions with healthcare purchasers.
- Provide information/training to purchasers in selection and use of environmentally preferable products and services.
- Provide customers with reporting on reductions in waste, energy or water use, toxic chemicals, disposal costs and other environmental and financial improvements linked to use of your products or services.
- List your products in H2E’s Product and Service Directory.
- Provide a discount to H2E Partners.
- Verify and publicize your organization's progress on internal environmental improvements (waste reduction, EPP, hazardous material elimination, etc.)
- Annually report on your sales of environmentally preferable products, or products and services which improve hospitals' environmental performance.
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Consultant Partners
General Goal: To train customers/clients in the environmental and economic benefits of reducing waste volumes and toxicity, increasing water- and energy efficiency, and eliminating the use of mercury-containing products and hazardous chemicals, and to encourage customers/ clients to connect with H2E's programs to reduce the overall environmental impact of their facility operations.
Activities
- Provide consulting services on waste and mercury reduction, P2, resource efficiency and toxics use reduction.
- List your services in the H2E’s Product and Service Directory.
- Provide services at discount to H2E Partners.
- Where possible, provide an option of payment based on savings resulting from your consulting activities (i.e. waste disposal cost reductions, water use reductions savings, etc).
- Provide general education on environmental issues related to healthcare in addition to the specific service you are providing (this may simply be through dissemination of H2E materials or through newsletter or website outreach).
- Provide H2E with annual reporting (including quantifiable data) on your clients' progress toward achieving the H2E program's goals.
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GPO Partners
General Goal: To reduce and strive to eliminate the purchase of environmentally damaging products (mercury-containing, hazardous chemical-containing, non-recycled, non-recyclable, etc.) through system contracts. To provide contracts for customer’s waste and recycling needs that include waste reduction analysis and assistance. To educate GPO members about the importance of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP).
Activities
- Promote environmental initiatives to staff and members.
- Inventory all contracts for mercury, hazardous chemicals/PBTs.
- Establish a policy to promote elimination of mercury- and other PBT-containing items and hazardous chemicals from contracts wherever feasible.
- Establish systems to inform contracting staff about environmental issues related to contracts.
- Provide training/assistance in developing environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) contract specifications.
- Contract for Environmentally Preferable (EP) alternatives — cleaning supplies, paper, mercury alternatives for clinical, lab and building supply, IPM services, water-saving appliances, energy efficient technologies -- and encourage members to use these contracts.
- Contract for responsible management of waste and recyclables.
- Train all sales staff in EPP information and available environmentally preferable contracts/criteria.
- Establish a system which offers members easy access to all EPP contracts, including information on environmental improvements(energy conserved, water saved, pounds of toxic materials avoided) related to contract attributes.
- Provide annual reporting on purchases of environmentally preferable products.
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Non Governmental Organization (NGO) Partners
General Goals: To educate the health care community about the links between environmental impacts from hospital operations and public health, and to educate hospitals on the environmental and economic benefits of reducing waste volumes and toxicity, increasing water- and energy efficiency, and eliminating the use of mercury-containing products and hazardous chemicals. To encourage facilities to connect with H2E's programs to reduce the overall environmental impact of their operations.
Activities
- Working with others in your state or region, organize educational events to reach out to the hospital community and educate them on environmental issues for health care facilities, and the connection to public health.
- Encourage individual hospitals to make use of H2E’s materials and join the program as Partners and Subscribers.
- Educate policy makers on the importance of supporting hospitals’ environmental improvement efforts.
- Encourage the public to ask about hospitals’ environmental performance, and to patronize and support hospitals that are working hard to reduce their impact on community health and safety.
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Government Agency Partners
General Goals: To support the development of a network of facilities, technical assistance providers, service and product vendors, health care associations and others within your government jurisdiction that can support hospitals progress towards environmental excellence.
Activities
Form a State or Metropolitan H2E Chapter. This requires some detailed goal setting and interaction with H2E staff. For more on this see H2E State Programs.
- Host educational meetings on environmental improvement in heath care.
- Use H2E resources to inform and assist health care facilities in your region.
- Enlist hospitals to become H2E Partners and Subscribers.
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