Leadership - Medxcel

FY17 Environmental Stewardship Program Report

Healthcare Without Waste

Leadership

Integrating sustainability into organizational strategy
Education & Communication

Creating awareness; improving adoption and practices and sharing success stories
Energy

Helping hospitals reduce costs and protect scarce resources
Water

Decreasing the strain on municipal water supplies and reducing energy needed to treat and deliver water
Green Buildings / Operations & Maintenance / Transportation

Green construction, operations and maintenance of healthcare facilities; vehicles; landscaping; and site water management
Safer Chemicals

Reducing exposure to chemicals in order to “first do no harm”
Food Systems

Increasing health and safety in food service while decreasing waste and use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in meat and poultry products
Environmentally Preferred Purchasing

Purchasing products that are durable, efficient and cost-effective, while reducing the hospital’s environmental impact
Waste Management & Reduction

Reducing waste while increasing recycling and donations, safely

Addressing Climate Change Impact in Catholic Healthcare

As a Catholic ministry, Ascension is called to address the impacts of climate change in healthcare. In November 2017, leaders of 165 Catholic organizations including health systems, universities, advocacy organizations and religious orders, issued a letter to Congress and the President urging those bodies to reassert U.S. leadership in the global effort to address climate change, based on the Catholic Church’s enduring call to care for creation, a tenet of Catholic social teaching.

Environmental Stewardship’s Connection to Mission

The Ascension Michigan Green Team demonstrated how an Ascension Ministry Market can weave envrionmental stewardship, Catholic identity and the Ascension Mission together. Collaboratively, the Ascension Michigan Market extended this Mission-oriented work using the six principles of the Catholic Identity Matrix (CIM):

Solidarity with those who live in poverty
Holistic care
Respect for human life
Participatory community of work and mutual respect
Stewardship
Acting in communion with the church

“Care of God”s creation can be woven into each principle of the CIM,” said Chris McClead, Vice President, Mission Integration. “It is our responsibility as an institution and as the individuals who support the Mission of the institution to do what we can to care for God’s creation because we care for the persons in the communities we serve.”

Packaging and Shipping Innovation for Ascension Signage Project

Thousands of exterior signs will replace legacy signs as part of Ascension’s unified brand work that began in 2017. Architectural Graphics Incorporate (AGI), the sign manufacturer for the project, typically ships signs in wooden crates to protect from damage during transit. Varying sign dimensions required custom crates with foam padding to be assembled for each product. The discarded crates become the responsibility of the receiving party and are seldom repurposed or recycled. During a plant tour, Ascension’s Planning, Design and Construction (PDC) team asked, could signage be packaged in recyclable materials? “We have clients tour our facilities on weekly basis and environmental stewardship is a common topic of conversation. In my 25 years in this business, I have never finished a tour with such a concise and actionable challenge,” said James Raynor, AGI Chief Operating Officer

Packaging and Shipping Innovation for Ascension Signage Project

Exterior signage attached to reusable shipping stands reduces waste by not requiring custom wooden crates as in the past

Thousands of exterior signs will replace legacy signs as part of Ascension’s unified brand work that began in 2017. Architectural Graphics Incorporate (AGI), the sign manufacturer for the project, typically ships signs in wooden crates to protect from damage during transit. Varying sign dimensions required custom crates with foam padding to be assembled for each product. The discarded crates become the responsibility of the receiving party and are seldom repurposed or recycled. During a plant tour, Ascension’s Planning, Design and Construction (PDC) team asked, could signage be packaged in recyclable materials? “We have clients tour our facilities on a weekly basis and environmental stewardship is a common topic of conversation. In my 25 years in this business, I have never finished a tour with such a concise and actionable challenge,” said James Raynor, AGI Chief Operating Officer.

Ascension PDC made introductions to account leads at Herman Miller, an Ascension contracted furniture vendor that has maintained a commitment to sustainability since 1956. Best practices for packing and production were shared during a visit to manufacturing plants in Holland, Michigan. AGI had been evaluating equipment that could produce cardboard boxes of variable dimensions. The challenge from the Ascension team was the catalyst to purchase a custom packaging machine with a commitment from James Raynor, AGI’s COO, to remove wood crates from the Ascension program prior to the start of sign installs in the Ascension Wisconsin market. This involved redesigning production and shipping on a four-month accelerated timeline in order to meet project schedules.

By changing shipping materials for small signs, AGI realized a 25% reduction in protective wrapping waste on the 1,800 signs leaving the factory every month. By changing the shipping process, more product fits in the trucks, reducing carbon emissions by an estimated four metric tons (or a reduction of 10,000 passenger car miles) for the Ascension projects in Wisconsin and Michigan. The entire process of sign design, production, shipping and removal of legacy signs will do less harm as part of the Ascension unified brand.

Large exterior signs cannot be packaged in cardboard alone due to the risk of damage in shipping. AGI engineers modified sign designs to attach to reusable shipping stands that keep signs upright and stable in transit and are then returned to AGI for reuse. The stands reduced the cubic volume of each sign unit by 25%.

“All Ascension design and construction teams work collaboratively to improve the sustainability of our facilities. What makes this story unique is the openness to share proprietary production practices across company lines, willingness to hear how others work and boldness to embrace change,” said Jennifer Hendrich Cayton, Manager of Design, PDC. AGI is extending its impact by implementing these changes with other major customers as well as sharing freight strategy with a goal to cluster 2018 shipments to reduce dedicated truck volume. Cardboard packing was used instead of wood in 80% of AGI’s 10,000 shipments in 2017. The automated packaging machine allowed ten shop employees to shift job roles and receive skills training to support other departments.

Pigs, People Appreciate Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital Composting

Associates at Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital in Dowagiac, a part of Ascension Michigan, were recognized in the Compass in the Community competition from Compass Group (the parent of TouchPoint Support Services). “We won the bronze award for starting a rigorous compost program involving cooks, dishwashers, dietitians, maintenance professionals and others”, said Patti Ramos, MPH, RD, Food & Nutrition Services, Crittenton Hospital, Rochester, Michigan. “We signed an agreement with a large area pig farm to provide food preparation items that enables us to continue our waste reduction program year-round.”

Ascension Investment Management Plays Role in Environmental Stewardship

Ascension Investment Management promotes clean energy, resource conservation, environmental services and more through its Impact Investment Strategy. In addition to seeking out investments that would improve access to goods and services for people living in poverty and the most vulnerable, it also seeks out private funds and advisers that focus on environmental stewardship, such as resource conservation, “green” products, renewable energy and clean water. "Impact investing represents an evolution of our Mission-based philosophy where we actively invest in a way that we believe will generate a social or environmental benefit," said David Erickson, Chief Investment Officer, Ascension Investment Management. “This commitment attests to our interest in environmental stewardship at home and abroad.”