History

The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care traces its roots back to October 21, 2000 when 27 representatives from some of Canada’s largest health care associations and environmental groups met in Ottawa at an environmental educational day organised by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Since then, the Coalition and its member groups have had a significant impact upon the greening of the Canadian health care landscape and have been involved in a very wide variety of local and national initiatives: mercury thermometer exchange events, the facilitation of an Environmental Management System (EMS) project with the Canadian Centre for Pollution Prevention, publications such as “Doing Less Harm: Assessing and Reducing the Environmental and Health Impact of Canada’s Health Care System,”  the original newsletter “Coalition Notes”, the “Building Green Hospitals Checklist,” and the Coalition LISTSERV.

For over 20 years the Coalition has encouraged the adoption of resource conservation, pollution prevention principles and effective environmental management systems to reduce the Canadian health care system’s ecological impact while protecting human health.

To support sustainability leadership in health care, the Coalition has provided education and mentoring to organisations and individuals in many areas. Past programs include the Climate Change Resiliency Mentoring Project, the WAHA First Nations Energy Project, how to start a Green Team and the Green Health Leader’s initiative.

The Coalition is very proud of its longstanding affiliation with the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society and the eight year association it forged with the Ontario Hospital Association that has resulted in the development and launch of the Green Health Care Awards, the Green Education Sessions held at the OHA’s annual HealthAchieve conference, and Canada’s first and largest green health care trade show feature, The Green Lane.