Health Care Without Harm Partners With Clinton Climate Initiative to Help Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities Reduce Environmen...( Partnership to Focus on ...),Health

Partnership to Focus on Energy Conservation and Facility Retrofitting

ARLINGTON, Va., July 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) has entered into an agreement with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, to develop programs to help hospitals and healthcare facilities reduce their environmental impact, particularly in the area of carbon reduction. HCWH will work with CCI to develop building energy efficiency retrofit projects and other carbon reduction strategies in healthcare facilities.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities emit large quantities of carbon and other pollutants associated with climate change. As the second most energy intensive commercial sector of the U.S. economy, healthcare consumes more than 73 trillion kWh of "conventional" electricity annually. According to U.S. EPA-based estimates, the healthcare industry's energy use adds over $600 million per year in increased healthcare costs related to increased disease burden in the general public (e.g. treated asthma cases, respiratory illness, increased hospital room visits).

Aware of their unintended contribution to climate change, many hospitals and healthcare facilities are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact. Many have joined HCWH and its affiliates Practice Greenhealth and the Global Health and Safety Initiative, to receive guidance and assistance. However, many facilities have not been able to secure funding for necessary major architectural and equipment changes because of the economic downturn. Through the HCWH-CCI partnership, hospitals and healthcare institutions will receive technical assistance when implementing energy efficiency projects and become eligible for discounted energy efficiency products. The initial focus of the HCWH-CCI collaboration will be on more than a dozen public and private hospitals
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