CAMH continues to be recognized as a leader in energy conservation among peer hospitals across the province.
In June, the Greening Health Care initiative singled out CAMH’s achievements for its “2015 Profile of Performance.”
“CAMH achieved savings through fine-tuning of systems operations, BAS (automated-building) programming, lighting retrofits, and central plant upgrades,” the organization noted. “CAMH continues to improve, making savings across all of their hospital and research sites every year since 2012” and made the organization’s top “5% club” in several categories this year.
CAMH’s Steve Stamogiannos, Supervisor, Plant Operations and Maintenance, says CAMH delivered energy savings of well over $200,000 in 2015 across the Queen, College and Russell Street sites. Steve joined his colleague Joe Dematos, Manager, Plant Operations and Maintenance, at the awards earlier this month.
Driving those CAMH gains were capital projects such as new state-of-the-art chiller units and cooling towers as well as operational changes – for example, scheduling equipment to shut down during un-occupied times.
Greening Health Care notes that its member hospitals including CAMH now use 11 per cent less energy per square foot than non-member hospitals, on average. In 2015, the combined results of member hospitals surpassed $3 million in natural gas and electricity cost savings. Founded in 2003, Greening Health Care is the largest program of its kind in North America, helping hospitals “work together to lower their energy costs, raise their environmental performance, and contribute to the health and well-being of their communities.”
Benchmarking against our peer hospitals
“We will continue to benchmark our green efforts against more than 40 other peer hospital buildings through the Greening Health Care initiative,” says CAMH Support Services Director Teresa Carlisle. Plans for 2016 include a multi-phase LED light replacement at the College Street site, she says. “CAMH is committed to further innovation to be a green leader.”
“Congratulations and a big thank you to the CAMH team for your extraordinary work,” said David Cunic, CAMH Vice President, Redevelopment and Support Services. “You are planning and delivering on innovative and green strategies that help redirect savings to patient care!”
CAMH employees play a big role too, through attention to computers, lighting and water use, notes Teresa. These initiatives are promoted by our green mascot, CAMY (below). Employees can contact a Green CAMH hotline to offer ideas to save energy and continue to reduce our carbon footprint.