How Penn Medicine is going green for good health

Penn Medicine is making many other such moves. From large-scale efforts, like a commitment to sustainable building design and a massive renewable power purchase agreement in collaboration with the university, to more localized initiatives in hospital operating rooms and offices, the changes are meant to move toward the same goal, articulated in the organization’s recent strategic plan: making Penn Medicine the most environmentally friendly health care organization in the nation.

“Health care is dedicated to healing, but the industry has played a role in the changing climate,” said Kevin B. Mahoney, chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS). “It’s our responsibility now to balance health care with impact. We can do this by fostering engagement around climate-related initiatives, improving sustainability within our own health systems and beyond, and setting an example for the field. It’s the right thing to do for our patients, the community, and the generations to come.”

Penn Medicine, which encompasses UPHS and the Perelman School of Medicine, currently has a climate footprint that rivals the rest of the university combined. The health system has committed to the university’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan, which includes adopting the “audacious yet achievable” goal of reaching 100 percent carbon neutrality by 2042, said Greg Evans, UPHS corporate director of sustainability. The goal is even more ambitious than the White House and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge, a voluntary commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

At the same time, Penn Medicine has committed to ensuring all new building projects are designed to incorporate recycled materials, integrate expansive greenery, use less water, use less energy and qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver, or better, certification through the U.S. Green Building Council. Already, more than 40 projects on the University of Pennsylvania campus have earned LEED Gold or Silver status, including the Singh Center for Nanotechnology and the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine.

When it opened in 2021, Penn Medicine’s 1.5-million-square-foot Pavilion became the largest LEED Healthcare certified project in the world to receive a gold certification for green design and construction. The Pavilion was built with both energy-efficient features and fixtures such as low-flow and low-flush toilets, sinks, and showers designed to cut 30 percent of typical indoor water use. In addition, more than 20 percent of the water required for the building’s HVAC equipment is captured and reused on site, such as rainwater, condensate, and foundation dewatering.

Penn Medicine is getting help on its path to carbon neutrality from its partnership with Practice Greenhealth, a national nonprofit membership organization that supports hospitals and health systems on sustainability initiatives. Princeton Medical Center had been a member of the cohort for years—in 2021 it won the organization’s Environmental Excellence Award for “significant achievement in building a more environmentally sustainable organization.” (During Evans’ two years at Princeton Medical Center, the institution also implemented a pilot effort that diverted 8 tons of landfill-bound food waste to a nearby farm for livestock feed or mulch and more than doubled its collection and reprocessing of single-use medical devices.)

By the end of 2023, all Penn Medicine hospitals had joined Practice Greenhealth, which Evans said offers an annual conference, cohort groups, educational resources, data and metrics and more. “All [Penn Medicine] entities will be part of Practice Greenhealth working under the same structure,” he said, “moving together in an organized way.”

On a smaller scale within Penn Medicine, individuals, divisions, and departments have been working on their own environmentally friendly initiatives for years. They have begun to unite in their goals since at least 2019, when CIRCE: Medicine, an offshoot of the Faculty Senate Select Committee on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency (CIRCE) formed to involve providers from UPHS and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in sustainability efforts. Misha Rosenbach, MD, the Paul R. Gross Professor of Dermatology in the Perelman School of Medicine, who does research on the link between climate change and dermatological conditions, leads the group with Hari Shankar, MD, an assistant professor of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care. CIRCE: Medicine members work on projects that aim to safely decrease the health system’s carbon footprint, such as efforts by anesthesia and surgery teams that have reduced the use of harmful greenhouse gases and reduced waste from operating rooms.

CIRCE: Medicine members are among many at the front lines at Penn who are identifying ways to make the organization one of the most sustainable companies in health care, from reusing expired materials for training programs to partnering with manufacturers to recycle single-use medical devices.

“Climate change is here. We’re dealing with it every day,” Evans said. “[People] want to be part of an organization that cares about climate change… Penn is spearheading this effort, and everybody needs to be part of the mission.”