In the “greening” world, the tendency is to focus on the big, sexy projects (because you know green is sexy…right?). Nothing screams sexy-green like a windmill, a wall of solar panels or a new composting plant (because you know compost is sexy…right?).

Now here at Energy & Environment, we’re definitely fans of sexy-green…new heat-reclaim chillers at Princess Margaret Hospital, the Deep Lake Cooling running through Toronto Rehab’s University Centre, new boilers for Bickle – it’s big, it’s bold, it’s sexy and it cuts a chunk out of our carbon footprint. But here at Energy & Environment, we’re equally as turned on by the small (and just as attractive) bits of greening that happen thousands of times a day throughout the network. It’s someone at Toronto Western composting their used paper towel, the person turning off their lights and computer at Rumsey, a battery recycling bin at Toronto General, a recycled juice bottle at Lyndhurst and a travel mug used at Hillcrest.

Which is why, Energy & Environment spends as much time as possible meeting and talking, talking and meeting and then figuring out how we can meet and talk some more. In fact, we like talking and meeting so much that we talked to over 2,500 UHNers last year in various training and information sessions, and are on track to meet with even more this year. We also have almost 300 Green Team members that we talk, and sometimes meet, with throughout the year. And all those people we meet and talk with? Well if they talk to a couple of friends who then talk to a couple of friends who then…well all of a sudden we’ve got all of UHN talking green, which means we’re building a culture of sustainability which, if you ask me, is probably the sexiest shade of green of them all…