For the third year in a row, Ascent, a medical device reprocessing company, was awarded Practice Greenhealth's Champion for Change Award. The award recognizes companies that improve their customers' environmental performance and succeed in making their own organizations more environmentally friendly.

Ascent went through a "very rigorous, long, detailed questionnaire" application, says Lars Thording, the company's director of marketing.

The questionnaire covered green initiatives the company has pursued and plans to pursue and the impact of those initiatives. Not only is Ascent environmentally responsible through its reprocessing program, but it also works to become green inside its own facility.

"We eliminate lots of waste from hospitals and surgical centers just because of what we do," says Thording. "[The award] was given to us because of initiatives for what we have done to reduce energy consumption, what we have done in terms of recycling, and what we constantly do to make sure that the chemicals and other things we use for reprocessing are environmentally the least harmful."

Thording says the award shows that becoming environmentally responsible is not something that happens to any organization in one day.

"Practice Greenhealth is recognizing our ongoing effort," he says. "It's not just something we do through our services," Thording says. "It's also to do with walking the walk and believing in what we do."

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