Boston-area hospitals cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 29 percent between 2011 and 2015, and are on pace for a 33 percent reduction by 2020, according to a new report from Health Care Without Harm.
The report includes data from hospitals serving on the Boston Green Ribbon Commission's Health Care Working Group. Their trajectory delivers a 47 percent reduction in greenhouse gases compared to "business as usual" by 2020.
With these reductions, Boston healthcare facilities are exceeding the mandated greenhouse gas reduction goals set by the city and by Massachusetts, which aim for a 25 percent reduction by 2020, and 100 percent by 2050. The 47 percent reduction is equivalent to eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 42,220 passenger vehicles.
Of the hospital-sector greenhouse gas emission reductions, 20 percent comes from investments in renewable energy, the report said. Partners Healthcare is purchasing low-impact hydropower, and will buy most of its electricity from a new wind turbine farm in New Hampshire; its goal is to make the system net carbon positive for all energy by 2025.
Boston Medical Center, meanwhile, is slashing energy use and neutralizing its electricity emissions through a North Carolina solar energy farm, and expects all its energy to be climate neutral by 2018.
The greenhouse gas reductions come as hospitals are providing more patient care, doing more energy-intensive medical research, expanding facilities and coping with hotter summers, all of which should have pushed energy use and emissions upward, according to the report. It analyzed more than 24,000 records covering 22 million square feet of hospitals.
In all, between 2011 and 2015, Boston hospitals achieved a reduction in total energy use of 9.4 percent; a reduction in electricity use of 13.1 percent; and a reduction in natural gas of 26.1 percent. They also generated enough cost savings to cover healthcare for 1,357 Massachusetts Medicare enrollees.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a $15 million cost savings is the equivalent of hospitals finding $300 million in new revenue every year.
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