Environmental Stewardship
“We Strive to Care Wisely for our People, our Resources and our Earth.”
This commitment to stewardship is the basis for our efforts to address environmental stewardship at St. Patrick Hospital. Hospitals are polluting through intense energy consumption, high volumes of waste, and use of chemicals of concern in products and processes. At St. Patrick Hospital, we address each of these through our award winning program “Green 4 Good”.
The first recycling project at St. Patrick Hospital was in 1992. Since then, many steps have been taken to conserve energy and water, to reduce waste and treat hazardous waste properly, and to reduce exposures to chemicals for patients, staff, and the community. In addition, the Green 4 Good (G4G) Champions provide educational and fun opportunities each month to increase staff awareness and invite staff to participate. St. Pat’s staff work with the city of Missoula, the City-County Health Department, the University of Montana and Montana State University as well as numerous non-profit organizations in Missoula to provide education and information particularly about health and environmental issues.
Our long-term commitment to environmental stewardship is part of how we do business, insuring that we will continue to give the excellent patient care that we value with the least environmental impact possible.
The Green 4 Good program aims to reduce environmental impacts from hospital operations at St. Patrick. The program provides education, motivation, and actions for staff and the community while tracking progress and measures outcomes, setting achievable goals each year.
Over many years, we have worked to decrease energy and water use, and have been recognized for our efforts with the Energy Star award and multiple awards from Practice Greenheatlh. Compared to hospitals of our size in the northwest, St. Patrick uses less energy per square foot than most. G4G has led the effort to redesign our waste stream. Staff members, through careful waste segregation, keep almost 40% of waste out of the landfill. Further, we have lower amounts of hazardous and infectious waste compared to national averages. This effort saves labor and money, while keeping our community cleaner. G4G addresses the use of chemicals in the workplace. We have successfully eliminated triclosan (a hormone disrupting pesticide) from our clinical soaps; we have essentially eliminated mercury from our equipment; we have reduces food additives and provide selected local and sustainable foods in our cafeteria and for patients.
G4G supports the efforts of staff by providing education, events such as Earth Week and the River Clean-up, by offering a commuter club, monthly Goals 4 Good, and much more. St. Pat’s is one of the leaders in our larger 50-hospitial system of Providence as we encourage each other to reduce harmful impacts even more. St. Pat’s staff contribute to the community by serving on the Mayor’s climate council, Climate Smart Missoula’s executive council, the Zero Waste Initiative, and by providing educational materials for college courses and public events.
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We recognize the vulnerability of the Earth and the relationship between the health of those seeking care from us and the well-being of the planet.
Underlying our core values is an understanding of the interdependence and sacredness of all living things.
We strive to act as responsible and just stewards by making choices that honor our relationship with the Earth.
The defining actions of this commitment are to:
- Reduce landfill waste
- Reduce waste and process toxicity
- Use sustainable facility design
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Support ecologically sound food systems
- Continue to learn and to expand efforts
We will proactively and consistently consider:
- How to optimize patient and employee safety while minimizing environmental impacts
- How the use and disposal of goods and services impacts our environment and our health
- How to protect the planet while working to heal those who seek our care
Environmental Stewardship Guiding Principles St. Patrick Hospital Adopted January 21, 2008.