Healthcare Sustainability Guidance Documents
Guidance documents developed by Health Care Without Harm
The Global Green and Healthy Hospitals (GGHH) Guidance Documents for sustainability action provide a comprehensive and global view into the GGHH sustainability goals. Written and reviewed by leading experts from around the world, each guidance document introduces a specific GGHH sustainability goal and covers the various opportunities within the topic area for GGHH/HELP members to act to reduce their environmental footprint. The Guidance Documents are available for members on GGHH Connect.
Sustainable Procurement
A groundbreaking new guide, featuring stories from 25 health care organizations around the globe, offers a roadmap to develop a sustainable purchasing strategy that prioritizes community and environmental health and safety while reducing costs.
Buildings
The Buildings Guidance Document helps health care leaders make the changes needed to reduce their resource consumption, use environmentally sustainable and healthy building products and minimize the environmental impacts of new and existing health care buildings and their facilities by identifying specific action and opportunities they can take.
Water
The Water Guidance Document helps health care leaders make the changes needed to ensure provision of potable water, reduce their water consumption, responsibly treat wastewater and minimize the environmental impacts of storm water runoff by identifying specific actions that health care facilities can take.
Waste
The Waste Guidance Document sets out strategies for health care facilities to meet the target of treating their waste in the most sustainable way possible from transportation to storage, treatment, recycling, and disposal. Recommended actions in this guide are supported with reference to real world examples and other resources on successful implementation.
Energy
The Energy Guidance Document provides a comprehensive look into energy use in the health sector and identifies opportunities for health care leaders to improve the efficiency of their facilities and increase their use and generation of energy from renewable sources.
Chemicals
Developed to advise and support health care institutions in addressing the most pressing challenges they face related to hazardous chemical use, this comprehensive resource provides strategies, tools, and real world examples aimed at protecting the health of patients, staff, visitors and the community. Find tools and resources on:
- Chemical identification, labeling, and communication
- Substitution and alternatives assessment
- Identification of priority chemicals and materials of concern
- Chemicals management action planning
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