University of Michigan Health recognized as a ‘top hospital’ for excellence in environmental sustainability

For the second year in a row, University of Michigan Health-Michigan Medicine has earned Practice Greenhealth’s Top 25 Environmental Excellence award, the highest sustainability honor granted to hospitals and health systems by the nation’s leading healthcare sustainability organization.  

Based on a rigorous scoring system, the Top 25 award honors success and performance in a range of environmental sustainability programs, which include topics like leadership, waste, chemicals, greening the operating room, food, sustainable procurement, energy, water, climate, transportation and green building. 

“Each year, the competition for this top award increases as hospitals and health systems across the nation continue to innovate and expand their sustainability efforts to address the growing threat of climate change. Receiving the award two years in a row is truly an honor and welcome validation of the hard work our entire team has put into making our health system and communities more sustainable and resilient. I am very proud of everyone who helped make this happen,” said Chip Amoe, J.D., M.P.A., U-M Health Sustainability Officer. 

“However, the negative health and economic impacts of climate change and environmental exposures continue for our patients and communities. So, we will take a moment to celebrate this significant accomplishment today, and tomorrow we will get right back to the important work of improving the health of the patients, employees and communities we serve.” 

U-M Health also earned a new health system record of five Circle of Excellence awards, which recognize the top 10 performing facilities (out of over 430 eligible applicants) in each of the 11 scoring categories. 

The award categories include waste, food, greening the OR, green building and water.

To receive recognition in the Circles of Excellence, winners must achieve Greenhealth Partner for Change award status and demonstrate outstanding performance and leadership through advanced actions in that sustainability impact area. 

“Environmental sustainability success is critical to advance our mission of improving the health of our patients, employees and communities we serve,” said Tony Denton, J.D., M.H.A., Senior Vice President and Chief Environmental, Social and Governance Officer for U-M Health-Michigan Medicine.  

“It is incredibly rewarding to see our sustainability initiatives garner national recognition from Practice Greenhealth once again. Of course, we are only able to achieve this recognition with the consistent and active participation of our dedicated team members across UM Health. I am tremendously proud and grateful of our teams  for being resilient and committed to elevating our planetary health initiatives and leadership year after year. We are making a real difference.

More information about this year’s Practice Greenhealth award recipients can be found here. 

About Practice Greenhealth: Practice Greenhealth is the leading membership and networking organization for sustainable health care, delivering environmental solutions to more than 1,700 U.S. hospitals and health systems. Learn more at practicegreenhealth.org.

About Michigan Medicine: At Michigan Medicine, we advance health to serve Michigan and the world. We pursue excellence every day in our 12 hospitals and hundreds of clinics statewide, as well as educate the next generation of physicians, health professionals and scientists in our U-M Medical School.

Michigan Medicine includes the U-M Medical School and University of Michigan Health, which includes the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, University Hospital, the Frankel Cardiovascular Center, Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan Health-West, University of Michigan-Sparrow and the Rogel Cancer Center. The U-M Medical School is one of the nation’s biomedical research powerhouses, with total research funding of more than $800 million.

More information is available at www.michiganmedicine.org.