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Premier – An environmental leader

Serving more than 3,600 U.S. hospitals and 120,000 other healthcare sites, members of the Premier healthcare alliance are working together to improve healthcare quality and affordability.

2016 CFC logoPremier leads the industry, being named a “Champion for Change” award recipient from Practice Greenhealth (formerly H2E) for fourteen years in a row – firmly establishing Premier and its members as leaders in healthcare and setting the bar in the industry for commitment to environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) and sustainability best practices.

Premier was selected for the award for its commitment to a healthy environment, evidenced in its GreenHealthy program, led by the Premier Safety Institute. GreenHealthy includes Premier’s EPP (environmentally preferable purchasing) program, comprehensive website with tools and resources on healthcare energy reduction to help hospitals reduce their carbon footprint, an internal corporate-wide Yes to Green program, “quick win” case studies on sustainability best practices on Premier’s GreenCorner website, and advocacy and partnerships to advance the healthcare sustainability agenda.

  • Download a summary of Premier’s GreenHealthy program

Environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) program

leafPremier recognizes contracted suppliers with environmentally preferable products. Premier uses a green leaf icon to tag over 250 “environmentally preferable contracts” from contracted suppliers in its electronic catalog for members, “Supply Chain Advisor.” These contracts have products or services with environmentally preferable attributes that reduce the negative impact on the quality and health of the environment and consider, for example, the product materials, potential toxicity, production, packaging, reusability, energy efficiency, disposal, nationally recognized certification, or its impact on the environment. In collaboration with our contracted suppliers and member contracting teams and committees, Premier helps to ensure the availability of these environmentally preferable products and services for our members.

EPP –green products/contracts

Premier has more than 250 environmentally preferable contracts, including those addressing medical products, food and energy efficiency. Premier maintains a selected list of EPP contracts/products that is located in Premier’s “Supply Chain Advisor (SCA)”  catalog. Additional product details are housed with each contract and suppliers may also be contacted for complete product information. (Member log-in required for access to Supply Chain Advisor.)

Latex-free products

  • latex-freePremier offers a latex-free catalog that contains 132,000 latex-free items in 4,000 categories from 1,100 suppliers and includes both contracted and non-contracted items (October 2014). Download in Supply Chain Advisor on front page under “Contract Resources.” (Member login required)

Healthcare energy reduction

Healthcare energy reduction is part of Premier’s commitment to a healthy environment, focusing on reducing industry energy costs, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint. Visit our energy website for tools and resources and more information about healthcare energy reduction.

Yes to Green

Premier’s Corporate Sustainability Initiative

Led by the internal “Green Team”, environmentally preferable and green considerations guide the acquisition, use, maintenance, reuse, recycling, and disposal of products and services used throughout Premier’s corporate offices, business operations, and conference services. A special employee Yes to Green Web site provides tips for office and home, guidance on corporate initiatives, and highlights successes.

Premier’s Yes to Green Pledge

Nearly 90% of Premier employees took the Yes to Green employee pledge to collectively reduce Premier’s carbon footprint by implementing five “green” strategies.

yes to green pledgeVarious formats of the Y2G pledge card.

Yes to green employee pledge

lightbulb I pledge to replace 4 light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs
I will eliminate 1800 pounds of carbon dioxide; Together, all of us at Premier will prevent 900 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
tap  I pledge to replace at least one car trip a month with walking, bicycling, or public transit
I will decrease carbon emissions by 1000 pounds; Together, all of us at Premier will decrease emissions by 500 tons per year.
green-car I pledge to turn off the tap when brushing my teeth
I will save 4 gallons of water a day; Together, all of us at Premier will save 1.4 million gallons a year or enough water to fill 165 Olympic sized pools.
green-tree I pledge to plant or care for a tree by watering, mulching, and removing litter
I will help to capture 3.6 pounds of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere: Together, all of us at Premier will help capture more than 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide in a year.
box I pledge to replace plastic shopping bags with reusable shopping bags
I will eliminate 208 plastic bags per year; Together, all of us at Premier will eliminate 208 thousand bags and save about 1.5 tons of waste going to the landfill per year.

Advocacy

Premier provides testimony and communications with federal agencies and Congress on key environmental issues for healthcare, advocating a rationale, cost-effective, and evidence-based approach.  View Advocacy website.

Partnerships – Collaboration

To achieve our environmental goals, Premier has established strategic partnerships with numerous organizations that share our goals and have tools and resources to assist hospitals with their environmental programs.