Environment & Sustainability in Hospital Design
What has environment and sustainability got to do with hospital design and construction? In-fact a great deal!
Environment and sustainability are not only the 21st century’s new buzz words but have been playing an increasingly bigger and more important role in shaping the world we live in. Businesses are falling over themselves in ranking environment with health and safety and the financial markets around the world have created sustainability indexes to list compliant companies. In this respect hospital design industry is no exception.
We are all too familiar with the images in the media of melting glaciers, burnt or cut down rain forests, extreme weather reports, tsunamis, floods, storms and deaths of innocent people around the world. There is no doubt we have been unkind to this planet we live in, to say the least!
It has taken years of tireless campaigning by the individuals and non-profit organisations to educate and inform the masses of our careless use of this earth’s resources. The balance of the nature has seriously been disturbed and we are already into the red. There is an extremely urgent need to address environment and take remedial measures to reign in the looming disaster. The government around the world got involved when the seriousness of the issue finally hit home.
Hospital designers can detail specifications for the materials that come from either re-cycled materials or sustainable resources. The concept of brown and green roofs has been around for a few years now and is gaining more and more popularity with the hospital design clients and local authorities alike to return something back to the earth and environment which we use when we build on a green field site thereby disturbing or destroying the plantation, flora, fauna and the wildlife.
Hospital and general construction companies can reduce wastage of building materials and should recycle, better still, re-use as much waste and rubble as they can to minimise impact on the environment. Advice on what changes can be made to corporate and personal activities can be sought from local authorities. For example your Carbon Footprint can be calculated from the UK government’s website: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/actonco2/DG_067197
Smoke, dust, noise, vibration, and chemicals are all different types of pollution, and procedures and systems must be put in place and regularly monitored to ensure that any sources of pollution are either removed all together or reduced and controlled rigorously.
Energy efficiency targets should be specified at the hospital design stage and greener energy sources sought. Use of natural light and heat should be used to reduce man made energy use. Misuse by the patients and staff should be “designed out” from the ground up. For example in large open space offices, we often see people who are constantly changing thermostat settings to personal liking, some even using personal heaters while others have the air cooling on or open windows with air-conditioning on. Now this is a sheer waste of resources. It can easily be handled by placing one central thermostat under the control of a responsible staff or automatic climate control features be switched on.
Hospital construction companies can also incentivise their sub-contractors to give due regard to environment and help reduce it’s impact. For example one project in London worked closely with a supplier to reduce packaging of materials by 60% without causing any problems during the transportation.
Use of trees and plants in landscaping provides a natural calm and a healthy space which helps the patients to recover faster and helps the environment and flora and fauna as well.
Reducing the number of deliveries, consumption of fuels and reduction in CO2 will all help the environment to sustain itself to some extent. Together we can surely be of service to this home of ours, if we start acting now! Tomorrow could be too late.
If you agree with what has been suggested and think that remedial measures need to be brought in sooner than later do get in touch with your local authority as well as look at other schemes that have been praised for their efforts.
http://www.HospitalDesignTips.com would be more than happy to provide any consultation on this important topic.
You may also be interested in Eco-Friendly Green & Brown Roofs article.
About the Author:
Harry McQue is a hospital design manager with three masters degrees including business management and information technology. Harry has 15 years of international experience ranging from working on hospital projects in Dubai (Middle East) to over £1 Billion hospital projects in the UK. You can benefit from his experience at: www.hospitaldesigntips.com. If there are topics that you would like his advice on, you can get in touch on Harry_Mcque@HospitalDesignTips.com
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