“A person's willpower is like water - it will go through forests, around mountains and valleys to arrive at its final destination. Let your challenges become mountains that you will overcome."

The Coalition announces exciting changes to the Green Hospital Scorecard program!
The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care is excited to announce the opening of the 2018 Green Hospital Scorecard survey in the New Year. We are excited to debut the newly improved survey, with new sections on food data, as well as energy behavior questions. Thanks to SaveONEnergy, we will also have a NEW Ontario Energy award this year, in line with the brand new section on Energy Behavior!

More details will become available on the official launch date, as well as information on webinars on new content next month. Stay tuned for more information!

The Coalition annual membership renewals and invoices

Have you renewed your membership yet? With 2018 quickly coming to a close, we encourage you to visit our membership site to view membership offerings, details and pricing.

We will be sending out invoices for 2018 memberships again in the coming weeks - we understand that there may have been some technical issues with the membership purchasing link and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Please watch your inbox for your 2018 membership invoice in the days ahead!
The Coalition offers certified RETScreen software expertise

Thanks to the recent graduation of JJ Knott from CIET’s Certified RETScreen Expert training program, the Coalition and our HealthCare Energy Leaders Canada Team are pleased to announce that we are now fully certified to help health care organisations across Canada establish RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software as an integral part of their overall strategic energy management initiative.

Through the RETScreen software, the HealthCare Energy Leaders Canada program can help health care facilities quickly analyze cost savings, feasibility, and emissions reductions related to proposed energy conservation measures. The program can also be used to help prioritize projects based on net present value analysis, return on investment, cost to benefit analysis, and future cash flows. It also enables the health care organisation to monitor and track energy savings and to report on cumulative savings resulting from completed projects, with adjusted baselines based on project completion dates. RETScreen can also be used to track energy consumption by single facility or based on a portfolio of multiple facilities, and has the capability to simplify report writing based on any project.

HealthCare Energy Leaders Canada looks forward to assisting health care organisations across Canada with analysis of energy conservation measures and/or the implementation of the RETScreen analysis tool within their organisation.  

To learn how you can get your FREE trial RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software subscription, and receive implementation assistance from the Coalition, please contact JJ Knott at jj.knott@greenhealthcare.ca or visit www.greenhealthcare.ca/retscreen

CHEO Green Team illustrates and helps to write a children's book!

Congratulations to Dr. Curtis Lavoie and Dr. Onda Leuss at CHEO for publishing "N=1: If the planet were my patient". This children's book not only discusses planetary health, but it was also illustrated by the CHEO Green Team, as well as the Medical Students of The University of Ottawa.

The book is now available in three book stores in Ottawa: Elgin Street Books, Octopus Books, and Books on Beachwood.
Odette Cancer Centre uses Green Office Toolkit to reduce waste

Congratulations to the Odette Cancer Center for cancelling 100 magazine/journal subscriptions in an effort to reduce their paper and plastic waste. Not only have they reduced their waste, but they are also successfully saving valuable time and resources.

If you would also like to use the toolkit to see how you can reduce waste in your office, please visit the Greening Office Toolkit tab on our website.
Lancet Countdown 2018 Report: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change

On November 29th, a global research team hailing from 27 academic institutions and inter-governmental organisations, released the 2018 edition of the report, “Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change”.

With data collected from 196 countries, the 2018 report identifies extreme heat as the health impact of greatest concern. The researchers note that global temperatures have been increasing steadily since 1990 with the highest increases in Europe. They found that 157 million more vulnerable people were exposed to heat waves in 2017 than were exposed in 2000. They report that in 2017, 712 extreme weather events occurred resulting in $326 billion (US funds) in economic losses; nearly a three-fold increase in economic losses over 2016.

On the same day, the Lancet Countdown team, working in collaboration with the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA), released the second version of the report, “Lancet Countdown 2018 Report: Briefing for Canadian Policymakers”, co-authored by CAPE President Dr. Courtney Howard. To read the Canadian report, please click HERE.

For the full 2018 report, click HERE.
ENERGY STAR ® Canada Awards nomination are open!
Between January 8 and March 1, 2019 ENERGY STAR ® Participants will be invited to apply for one or more awards. NRCan is excited to recognize the outstanding 2018 achievements in promoting ENERGY STAR ® certified products and new homes!

Please visit the Awards Page  for more information.

Call for nominations: Canadian College of Health Leaders Awards
Deadlines for nominations: November 30, 2018 for the 4 individual awards, and February 1, 2019 for team and organization awards.

For almost two decades, the National Awards Program (held by the Canadian College of Health Leaders) has been showcasing the success of exemplary individuals and teams, encouraging knowledge exchange, and celebrating excellence while stimulating replication of leading practices across the health industry. The awards recognize the importance of leadership, commitment and performance.The program boasts 16 awards honouring leaders in healthcare, including senior executives, emerging leaders, administrative and operational teams, nurses, students and more. To find out more information about the awards and to nominate an individual or an organization, please CLICK here.

If you have inspirational greening stories or photos to share with Green Digest readers, please send them to Linxi at linxi@greenhealthcare.ca
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.