The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has unveiled its newest LEED standard, which focuses on healthcare facilities.
After two years of initial development, the USGBC introduced LEED-HC as a pilot in 2007. The organization worked with the Green Guide for Healthcare, a project of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and Health Care Without Harm, to produce the standard.
More than 225 facilities have been certified to the standard and 1,176 more are in the pipeline as registered projects. These are some of the more prominent facilities that have earned LEED-HC certification -- all of them at the platinum level, the highest possible in the green building rating and assessment system:
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Formalization of the green building standard is the most recent development in the movement to make the healthcare industry -- a huge consumer of electricity and generator of waste -- more environmentally responsible. The work includes green building, renovation and renewable energy efforts, as well as initiatives that are aimed changing industry practices, such the drive to green operating rooms and Kaiser's requirement that medical suppliers provide environmental information about their products.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this news is that: "Research has shown that when we are treated and heal in a green healthcare facility – one that has a healthy indoor environmental quality and connects us to the outdoors – we heal faster, have shorter hospital stays and fewer return visits."
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