So if you thought UHN was doing a good thing here in Toronto – helping to make environmental protection and sustainability common place at work you would be right.  Between our waste reduction and active transportation program we have folks buying less garbage and biking from Oakville.  We are also running a pretty innovative energy management program called TLC – Thermostats, Lights and Controls.  We are trying to save 15% of our utilities through conservation and efficiency which would be about $1,000,000 and 10,000 tonnes of CO2…for those who are counting.

The beauty of this program is that it finds that place somewhere between techno geek and tree hugger where real sustainable change can happen.  Our facilities departments are finding savings adding up to thousands of dollars.  Staff across the organization are turning off lights, computers and monitors every night where they used to stay on.  Slowly but surely we are seeing staff values align with their actions.

It is not just us thinking about this stuff either. TLC was recently featured in the UK  based energyXchange Bulletin in an article called Sustain Ability.  If we can do it, any hospital can too.  Just takes a little TLC.