Healthcare Design - August 2016 - 14

MONITOR
Edited by Anne DiNardo

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Reducing energy consumption isn't the only area
where healthcare organizations and designers are
making a positive environmental impact these days.
In response to rising water and sewage rates, changing regulations, and the increasing occurrence of extreme weather conditions, more facilities are starting
to look for ways to reduce their water consumption,
as well.
As part of its Major Institution Master Plan, Seattle
Children's set a goal to reduce water and energy
use by 50 percent by 2030. "Seattle has some of the
highest water/sewer costs in the U.S.," says Colleen
Groll, sustainability program manager at Seattle
Children's. "We need to future-proof our operations
so we're not burdened by soaring utility costs, and
to fulfill our mission to children, we need to conserve
energy and water for future generations." The facility's
strategies ranged from installing low-flow plumbing
fixtures in older parts of the campus to fixing a leak
on its therapy pool. The combined efforts resulted in
savings of more than 1 million gallons of water a year.
Efforts like these are having a ripple effect across
the sector as hospital water use is gradually declining, averaging 49 gallons per square foot per year
compared with nearly 70 gallons a decade ago,
according to "The 2015 Hospital Energy and Water
Benchmarking Survey," released by consulting firm
Grumman/Butkus Associates (Evanston, Ill.).
It's an important issue to address since hospitals
are the most water-intensive facilities in the world with
seven percent of the commercial and institutional use
in the U.S., says Iqbal Mian, member engagement
manager at Practice Greenhealth, a membership and
networking organization that consults with compa14

HCDmagazine.com 08.16

nies on sustainable practices. Seventy-five percent
of a hospital's water usage is for non-domestic uses,
such as running the central utility plant, while 25
percent is for domestic water use, such as faucets,
showers, and toilets, he says. "Since non-domestic is
the largest source of water use in hospitals, it's a good
starting point [to look for reduction opportunities],"
Mian says.
Breeze Glazer, senior associate and sustainable
design leader and research knowledge manager at
Perkins+Will (New York), says practices such as lowflow fixtures and using no potable water for landscape
irrigation are becoming the baseline for many organizations. "Nearly all of our projects in the last 5-6 years
have achieved at least 20 percent potable water savings and many are achieving 30 percent or more just
from specifying low-flow toilets and faucets," he says.
New regulations, such as one in New York that
requires buildings to have a cistern on site to hold
rainwater and slowly release it after a major storm, provide another opportunity to reduce consumption. Says
Glazer, "When the regulations change, that's when
slow-adopters start to shift and move."
Other forward-thinking organizations are leading
the way on new strategies, such as the Lucile Packard
Children's Hospital Stanford expansion in Palo Alto,
Calif., which will collect not only rainwater but also
condensate from air-handling units to irrigate all
landscaping. Jack Goode, director of support services
for Lucille Packard Children's, says one of the biggest
challenges is saving water without compromising safety. "Instead of focusing on areas we cannot control, we
turned our attention to those we can such as irrigation
and equipment selection," he says.-Anne DiNardo

75 percent of
a hospital's
water usage
is for nondomestic
uses, such as
running the
central utility
plant, while
25 percent is
for domestic
use, such
as faucets,
showers, and
toilets.
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Healthcare Design - August 2016

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