Take, for example, Kaiser Permanente.

"Our sustainability efforts focus on cost-controlled things that can help our patients, and we've done a lot of those. And sometimes we actually use our volume to inspire the marketplace to make products available to us that meet those objectives," reports Scott Slotterback, principal, project support and review for Kaiser Permanente's National Facilities Services.





Kaiser examines sustainability from three safety perspectives: patient safety, workplace safety and environmental safety.

"We were trying to remove the polyvinyl chloride from as many building products as we could, and at the time there were no carpets that didn't have PVC in their backing," Slotterback recalls.

Kaiser approached their flooring vendors with a proposition: whoever could meet the system's performance, aesthetic and environmental requirements would get the contract to do all the carpeting for all of the facilities in their system. "Now that product is available for everyone," Slotterback says.

"We're very conscious about how we use our members' money. We try to do that very responsibly," he adds. "In difficult economic times, a commitment to sustainability is something you can integrate into your project, even if it's a bit more difficult. Any problem can be solved by spending more money on it, but that's not always going to be the best solution. We tend to focus on solutions that reduce our costs or that are cost neutral. In an economic downturn, saving money is still a good thing."

Speaking sustainability

"The whole nature of sustainability is that it's not an end in of itself. It's an integrated component of how you think of solutions and to see how you can work it into solving the most complex or simplest of problems," says Brian Weldy, VP of sustainability for the International Facility Management Association Health Care Council (IFMA HCC).

Weldy, who in addition to his role at IFMA HCC is a facilities management exec with the Hospital Corporation of America, underscores the need for economic justification when it comes to deciding how to add sustainability measures into a hospital's building plans.

More Industry Headlines