Sustainability in Health Care: A Look at Henry Ford Health’s Green Efforts
Health care leaders have the uniquechallenge of improving the health and well-being of the individuals, neighborhoods, and communities they serve while simultaneously working to minimize negative and health-depreciating impacts on the environment. We spoke to Chip Amoe, who became Henry Ford Health’s first director of sustainability in 2018, about the challenges and successes he faces as he leads HFH to become more ‘green.’ Founded in 1915 by Henry Ford himself, Henry Ford Health is a not-for-profit, academic, and integrated health system comprising five acute-care hospitals, three behavioral health facilities, a health plan, and 250-plus care sites including medical centers, same-day, and urgent care clinics, pharmacies, eye care facilities, and other health care operations. The health system has more than 33,000 employees and nearly 6,000 physicians and researchers. Amoe took on the role with a conviction that HFH can work to lead by example and help influence the sustainability policies and actions of government officials and other businesses in the state and region. His original initiatives focused on reducing plastic and Styrofoam waste, exploring ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy reduction, and standardizing efforts across the system. Toward the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in December 2021 Henry Ford announced they will begin purchasing wind and solar energy through DTE’s voluntary renewable energy program, MIGreenPower. Amoe says, Our overall goal here is to reduce scope 1 & 2 emissions by 50% by 2030. To do that we need to reduce emissions from purchased energy. We plan to start purchasing this renewable energy in 2023, the earliest it will be available, and ramp it up over time. To that end, initially, 10% (approximately 19,100 mega-watt hours) of Henry Ford’s total electricity purchased from DTE will come from Michigan-made renewable energy, increasing incrementally to 100% by 2029. Henry Ford’s clean energy commitment with DTE will begin in late 2023. The organization states its initial purchase will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 13,536 metric tons, the equivalent of removing 2,944 passenger vehicles from the road each year. In terms of setting longer-term goals, Amoe said, “There are several national organizations that have developed green healthcare standards for healthcare systems. Taking those into consideration, we also felt it was important to turnto our internal priorities that align directly with our mission of improving the health of the communities we serve and that link health and sustainability.” The following five goals are derived from that exercise: Reduce emissions from operations Eliminate chemicals of concern, i.e. furnishings, cleaning chemicals, certain medical devices Reduce waste to landfills, such as bottled water, food waste, packaging, and utilizing reprocessed equipment Increase the purchase of local and sustainable food Increase the investment in green and healthy infrastructure, such as green spaces, stormwater management, advocacy around public transportation and employee commuting, and more When asked what pitfalls Henry Ford Health faces in implementing green efforts, Amoe cited two large challenges. “Data collecting is a huge challenge,” he said. “When I came on board I assumed the information was being collected and housed so that we could track it. But I quickly learned that wasn’t the case.We’re a large, complex system and there are multiple data sources maintained by multiple departments so you inevitably come to understand thereare gaps in the information. And you can’t move what you can’t measure. We are working to streamline our data collection efforts and it’s a long process.” The second challenge is the state of the U.S. recycling market. Just as I started my role in 2018, China announced that it would no longer be accepting recycled material from the U.S. This has been a big hit to the U.S. recycling market and made it much more challenging. Combine that with low landfill tipping fees in the state and the lack of recycling infrastructure in the region and that means recycling is often more expensive than throwing things away. Despite the challenges, Amoe and the Henry Ford team have implemented several initiatives in the past four years, including: Reducing the use of more potent anesthetic gasses from operating rooms to reduce emissions Eliminating Styrofoam from all their retail locations Upgrading exterior lighting to reduce energy waste Hosting their first zero-waste event They have also partnered with Friends of the Rouge to create raingardens at their new Plymouth medical center and south campus to divert stormwater and offer green space. When asked what the health care industry could improve on to forward sustainability efforts, Amoe said “it’s important to come together as an industry around common standards, and work with outside vendors as an industry to request and gather data in a common format so that vendors know how they can help us meet our shared goals of improving the health of our communities Additionally, the Michigan Health and Hospital Association Green Health Care Committee – which Amoe chairs – recently launched an MHA-approved Health Care Sustainability Road Map to give health systems a place to start when it comes to sustainability. “We are working to develop common standards and to provide resources to hospitals in Michigan and beyond.” In the end, Amoe says, “We hope to demonstrate to our staff, patients, vendors, and surrounding businesses the connection between health and sustainability, and further, to facilitate positive choices that impact the overall health of our community.” Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates on sustainable business practices in and around Detroit.
Kerry C. Duggan Works With Game-Changing Sustainability Businesses in Detroit
SBND interviews Kerry C. Duggan,national political advisor and visionary climatech executive and former Obama White House official. Founder and CEO of SustainabiliD in Detroit, and recently named the founding director of the University of Michigan’s SEAS Sustainability Clinic, Duggan shares her thoughts on a local level, highlighting key women and businesses who are making an impact and offering advice on approaching sustainability. Duggan is a board director of Perma-Fix (NASDAQ: PESI) and a senior advisor at RockCreek. She also sits on several corporate advisory boards, including Our Next Energy (ONE), Lux-Wall, Aclima, Walker-Miller, Arctaris Impact Investors, BlueConduit, and Commonweal Ventures. She is a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists and a member of the International Women’s Forum. Duggan’s current public service includes serving as an appointee to the (U.S.) Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board (SEAB) under Secretary Jennifer Granholm and to the State of Michigan’s Council on Climate Solutions under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Q: Kerry, please tell us about your current work. A: I started SustainabiliD five years ago. It is a woman-owned,service-disabled veteran-owned, Detroit-based diverse small business working with game-changers to equitably solve the climate crisis.So, I have no small mission statement. As such, I’ve spent the last five years working on climate solutions in two ways: On the institutional side, I’m working to help develop the business model around place-based work for larger organizations. I have been appointed as the founding director of UM’s SEAS sustainability clinic in Detroit, and we are currently focused on three goals: To seek equitable and just solutions to the city’s most pressing sustainability-related issues; to lower operating costs—particularly in energy management for city operations—while reducing carbon emissions; and to support the delivery of services directly to the city and, through partner programs, to improve residents’ quality of life. Second, I work with climate solution companies. These are the game-changers. For example, Our Next Energy (ONE) recently set a world record of EV miles traveled on a single charge: 752 miles, in December, in Michigan. This is a very big deal. I work to help these businesses navigate opportunities to scale with the speed that we all need to combat the climate crisis. Q: Your work is largely around energy, climate, and environment.Where does your passion in these areas come from? A: First, I’m a mom. Climate is the most urgent issue of our time, and I want to create a safer, more sustainable planet for the next generation. Second, I have always loved doing my work in Detroit. My ancestors immigrated to Detroit from Ireland, so from a generational perspective, I try to give back to the place that has given my family so much. In this way, I’m very grounded in Detroit. I was also blessed to spend many summers of my youth on the shores of the Great Lakes, home to 21% of the world’s fresh surface water. How lucky are we? I work to protect that and make it available for my kids. Lastly, I have a basketball background, and the skills I gleaned from playing high-level hoops have transferred to my work. I’ll give an example. There is a move in basketball called the ‘give-and-go move’ where you give the ball away, then cut to the net, and get the ball back to make the lay-up. In my work, I listen to the needs of leaders in communities, putting aside my point of view, because if I don’t listen to real and immediate needs, we are just talking past one another – and no one wins. I put the give-and-go into practice in this way a lot. Q: What is your vision behind SustainabiliD? A: I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. Kids twenty miles down the road living in the city of Detroit faced injustices that I did notand conversely did not have the opportunities I had. That’s been my charge: how can we change this and ensure the city is not only vibrant and safe but also offers equitable opportunities to everyone? Q: The SustainabiliD team is predominantly women. What are your thoughts on women as leaders in sustainability? A: I think if I created a pie chart of my calendar, we’d see that daily I’m mostly speaking with female leaders across the globe, who are mostly non-white. These are the voices that have been left furthest behind in every conversation to date on the planet. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I always try to listen to people of color, women, other minorities, and people with underrepresented identities on what their needs are and try to help them position themselves to win the future. That’s where I’ve chosen to spend my time. Q: Speaking of women, what Detroit female business leaders in the sustainability space can you point to who are making a difference? A: Carla Walker-Miller. I work with a variety of companies but one that is an absolute stand-out is Walker-Miller Energy Services. In addition to what they do, which is to help relieve folks of energy burden by doing energy retrofits, Carla is an equitable economic development leader and a woman of color. I admire her not only for her company’s work but for her leadership. She is a national figure living and working in Detroit making a great impact on equitable economic development. Her work constantly informs what I’m doing now. Carla Walker-Miller has hired Dr. Brandy Brown as Chief Innovation Officer for Walker-Miller. She is another amazing talent. Before joining Walker-Miller, Dr. Brown served as Climate & Energy Advisor within the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy. She also serves as part of the Environmental Justice faculty for the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability and as an appointee to Michigan’s National Resources Trust Fund Board. A native Detroiter, Dr. Jalonne L. White-Newsome was recently tapped to be the new White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Senior Director for Environmental Justice. She has tackled environmental challenges from a wide range
