Top: Jeff Getty,. lead design architect of the Fort Bliss Hospital Replacement. Middle: Mark Meaders, sustainability manager for HDR. Bottom: Erin McMillan, HDR project architect.

While conditions at the Walter Reed facility, then located in Washington, D.C., developed into a scandal, there was a very positive result that would direct the design of military hospitals going forward.

“It certainly awakened a lot of people in the Department of Defense to a lot of things they weren’t cognizant of,” Getty says. “There’s a great sensitivity now to treating these folks [wounded soldiers] with great care.”

Today Getty is the lead design architect of the Fort Bliss Hospital Replacement, a $1 billion project that will replace the current hospital, the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss. The new medical center, in El Paso, Texas, will embrace the highest principles of healthcare architecture: a patient-centered, world-class complex that incorporates U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines and evidence-based design (EBD), as well as a Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI) philosophy. An original HDR concept, SROI estimates the value of a project by assigning a monetary value to every cost and benefit, including economic, social, and environmental.

By weighing the effect of every aspect of military hospitals on patients, their families, medical staff, and the environment, the Fort Bliss facility will be a paragon of healthcare settings for treating active soldiers, veterans, and their families. Scheduled to open in 2018, the hospital will showcase sustainability, smart technology, and energy-saving features in a visually comforting, patient-centered setting.

In summer 2018, HDR plans to apply for LEED Silver certification in two areas: LEED for Healthcare for the center’s hospital and clinic, and LEED for New Construction for ancillary structures, such as the administration building and the central utility plant.

Mark Meaders, LEED AP BD+C, a sustainability manager in HDR’s Dallas office, says that HDR’s effort toward sustainability and design—putting people and the planet first—is based on a simple but hard-hitting mantra: “Our resources are not infinite. With the exception of the sun’s energy and wind, they are finite.”

Meaders is leading the Fort Bliss project’s sustainability efforts for HDR, an award-winning global firm with roughly 1,500 employees. HDR has examined countless components that will create a state-of-the-art Fort Bliss medical facility, featuring 127 inpatient rooms with smart room technology and plenty of natural light.

The goal of HDR’s Fort Bliss project team is to design a world-class medical facility in support of our veterans and their families.

HDR employed a leading-edge strategy to identify products with reduced toxins for the project, helping to avoid toxic chemicals such as heavy metals, phthalates, and perfluorinated compounds. The principle of material transparency—requesting that building product manufacturers disclose the materials in their products—provided a great assist.

“HDR, as well as many design firms, is placing a big focus on health and wellness, material transparency, and minimizing, or eliminating, chemicals of concern,” Meaders says. Options are much more plentiful today, he adds, than when the design started in 2010.

HDR’s holistic approach is focusing on sustainable building materials with recycled content and certified wood, and materials from regional sources. Many inpatient rooms will be equipped with ceiling-mounted lifts and rubber flooring, to ease physical stress for patients and medical staff. Inpatient rooms will be cleaned with a hydrogen peroxide vapor system to eliminate pathogens like the MRSA bacteria, avoiding the use of toxic cleaners.

Energy-efficient measures will be featured throughout, including high-efficiency centrifugal chillers with variable speed drives, and passive energy reduction through reflective roofing systems and shading devices on exterior windows.

Another exciting component is the addition of eight simulation labs, including an operating room, and seven classrooms, all aiding in research and staff education. “Research is part of world-class design,” says Erin McMillan, an HDR project architect who has been helping to execute Getty’s vision. “The simulation areas will show whether a premise of design actually panned out.”

The U.S. Armed Forces has been a significant partner in making strides for sustainability and patient-centered care in a truly world-class setting, Meaders says. “The military has a big focus on energy and water efficiency and independence, resiliency, climate impacts on design, and other factors,” he says. “I believe this project is an excellent example of such efforts.”

Locating technology, materials, and other strategies that are cost competitive—one aspect of SROI—is imperative, Meaders says. But the SROI concept goes much further to determine the real cost of each part. SROI analysis converts to dollars all relevant incremental social, environmental, and financial impacts of a structure, including air and water quality, waste reduction, and human health, as well as financial impact (such as the cost of labor).

“All the analysis that went into the SROI measures was unique and forward-thinking,” Meaders says. “I have not worked on another project that has performed that level of analysis.”

A geothermal energy system was not pursued after a 6,000-ft test well showed the water was not hot enough for the planned system. Likewise, a plan for a reclamation plant to clean wastewater for irrigation and other nondrinking uses also was not feasible.

Grounds will be planted with natural grasses and indigenous plants, instead of a traditional grass lawn, creating a beautiful desert landscape under a breathtaking open sky. Drought-resistant trees will dot the site, measuring more than 16 million square feet, as well as native shrubs, perennials, and succulents.

Two overarching goals have guided the project, Getty says. “The first one is to improve the lives of patients to make better outcomes and better care,” he says. “The second is to improve staff satisfaction and health. It’s all about caring for patients and staff.” Inherent in that philosophy is, Getty adds, “being a responsible steward of environmental concerns and protecting resources.”

Meaders concurs that the environment must take center stage in the Fort Bliss project. “It is our duty and responsibility to manage and conserve natural resources for future generations,” he says. “It is also our responsibility to leave the Earth a better place than when we got it from our parents and grandparents.” 

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Clif Bar’s offices on 66th Street in Emeryville, California, are more than a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum testament to a sustainability commitment that began more than 15 years ago. It is a green building rich in biophilic design elements that have made for a happier and healthier workforce while the company has simultaneously grown into one of the biggest brands in the market.

Left: Located in Emeryville, Clif Bar’s new headquarters were designed by ZGF Architects.   Right: Bill Browning is a partner at the sustainability consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green and an expert in biophilic design.

Top: Clif Bar’s director of environmental stewardship Elysa Hammond. Below: The headquarters has a rock wall in its gym.

Working and playing outside is a cornerstone of Clif Bar’s identity. Founder Gary Erickson famously conjured the idea for a better-tasting energy bar during a 175-mile bike ride, and the bars quickly became bestsellers among cyclists, climbers, and the rest of the outdoors crowd after their introduction in 1992. But the company’s first serious sustainability pledge came after an uncertain time, when Clif Bar found itself among the many natural food brands targeted for corporate consolidation. Erickson rejected a buyout offer, and soon after, called old friend and ecologist Elysa Hammond to help the privately owned company make its products organic. “In that process, we realized we needed a holistic sustainability program—a systems approach that looks at the connections between food and agriculture, climate, energy, and natural resources,” says Hammond, now Clif Bar’s director of environmental stewardship. “Plenty of other companies have sustainability programs, solar arrays, and so on, but we made a commitment to organic agriculture as the starting point and moved forward from there.”

Clif Bar first announced its sustainability commitment on Earth Day 2001 and deployed sweeping measures across every facet of its business—from purchasing more than 630 million pounds of organic ingredients and earning organic certification for the majority of its products, to financing wind farms that offset the company’s carbon footprint and offering $6,500 toward the purchase of a hybrid vehicle (among other incentives) to encourage alternative modes of commuting. Along the way, publications from Fortune to Outside endorsed Clif Bar as one of the best places to work.

By 2010, that happy workforce had relocated from its original headquarters in Berkeley into its new home in Emeryville. Designed by ZGF Architects and housed within a repurposed World War II–era manufacturing plant, the two-story building is lined with an abundance of wood that is either salvaged from old barns and railroad ties or harvested from sustainable forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. A smart solar array provides about 80 percent of the building’s electricity, while a separate solar thermal system covers 70 percent of its hot water needs. Repurposed sports equipment abounds—skis, snowboards, and surfboards are refashioned as artwork, and logo-bearing pieces of bike frames are repurposed as door handles. An onsite café, Kali’s Kitchen, serves an ever-changing menu of food made largely from locally sourced organic ingredients. The building also includes other amenities for its 410 employees, like a childcare center, a full gym with a yoga room and rock climbing wall (where employees are paid to exercise 30 minutes a day), and an area for company-subsidized massages. On any given day, you will find at least a dozen dogs roaming the floor.

In 2012, the headquarters became the first LEED Platinum building in Emeryville. “Clif Bar is all about health, performance, and a connection with nature,” says Brenden McEneaney, director of USGBC Northern California. “It’s great to see how they embody those values by providing a healthy, productive space for their workers that has a lighter environmental footprint through LEED Platinum design.”

The building is also rich in biophilic design elements that conjure the outdoors to foster a more productive, content workforce. “For Clif Bar, it was a really natural fit because the connection to nature is a very strong part of their brand identity and corporate culture,” says Bill Browning, partner at the sustainability consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green and an expert in biophilic design. “It’s an expression of who they are, but it then has direct benefits for the health, well-being, and happiness of all the people who work there.” Low partitions lend the open floor plan a quality called prospect—an unimpeded view across the natural-light-soaked space—and allow workers’ screen-addled eyes to relax. The windows provide occasional glimpses of birds and wildlife, views that have restorative effects on focus and creativity. Plantings in the atriums and throughout the office evoke even more of the great outdoors.

Now, Clif Bar is finding ways of bringing the restorative power of nature to the up-to-code sterility of its bakery under construction in Twin Falls, Idaho. When it came time for Clif Bar to build its first bakery from the ground up, the company approached Browning to expand on its initial green design by adding biophilic elements into a 275,000-sq-ft space that was much more strictly regulated. Keeping a sterile environment, for example, means prohibiting plants, wood, and other natural materials in the kitchen, and the 3-shift, 24-hour-a-day nature of operations means the benefits that come with enhancing daylight disappear when the sun goes down. Nonetheless, Browning says, “Even in a sterile white box, there are still things you can do to introduce [a] connection to nature.”

That approach likely means doubling down on the same sorts of biophilic features evidenced in the common areas and break rooms of Clif Bar’s headquarters: a rock wall that mimics the strata of Idaho’s local geology, an outdoor community garden, and an outdoor walking path. “There will be a lot of these features that are very similar to what they’ve done at their headquarters, but almost on overdrive to compensate for what you can’t do within the sterile space,” Browning says.

Within the bakery itself, along with adding windows so workers can see the landscape outside, there are tentative plans to project a changing lineup of images shared on Clif Bar’s social media pages onto the bakery’s blank white walls. “It could be the Grand Canyon, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, biking in a forest, or on a kayak paddling through some other amazing, beautiful place,” Browning says, noting that data shows that simply looking at a picture of nature has many of the same psychological and physiological benefits as being in nature, like lowering heart rate and blood pressure. “The idea is that you have a view of nature inside the space.”

While it’s hard to attribute Clif Bar’s low turnover and generally buoyant disposition solely to natural light, or the luxury of stepping into an open-air atrium to take a phone call, those biophilic elements have an aggregate effect as part of a culture that puts sustainability at the forefront. Hammond relays an anecdote: “One woman [who works in Emeryville] said, ‘At the end of the workday, I used to always feel exhausted. But here, I don’t feel that—I feel refreshed.’” Maybe it is because it felt like she’d been outside all day. 

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By Mary Grauerholz

Tampa becomes the first city in the world to introduce a WELL Certified district.

When green building began to sweep the country in the 1970s, it came with a red alert: Construction with toxic components was harmful to the environment. A correlation between the effects of traditional construction and human health increased the urgency. Now, a group of stakeholders is breaking new, higher ground by establishing the world’s first WELL Certified city district in Tampa, Florida.

Paul Scialla helped launch the International WELL Building Institute. He oversees the work to ensure it will meet WELL Certification.

The project will be the first district-wide application of the WELL Building Standard, the world’s first building standard focused exclusively on human health and wellness. WELL fulfills a 2012 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to Action to improve the way people live indoors, and this new commitment builds on WELL and tackles the even greater challenge of creating city-scale developments built for health and wellness. “Today more than half the global population is already residing in cities,” former President Bill Clinton said as he announced the latest commitment at the 2015 CGI Annual Meeting. “The physical spaces where we live, work, and play influence our level of physical activity, social interaction, and our health.”

The philosophy of WELL and its application to the Tampa project is straightforward: Better air and water, greener construction, and more healthful options for food and fitness—presented in the framework of a connected community—intend to help improve the physical and emotional health of the people living there. Research shows that people who live in walkable, connected neighborhoods have lower rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

The city district of Tampa, Florida, will be the first district-wide application of the WELL Building Standard, the world’s first building standard focused exclusively on human health and wellness.

The 40-acre development, due to break ground in Tampa’s downtown waterfront area this year, will be a walkable, sustainable, healthy environment for residents, workers, and visitors. Overseeing the effort is a starry convergence of figures in the worlds of business and not-for-profits: Jeff Vinik, owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning ice hockey team; Cascade Investment, LLC; and Paul Scialla, who launched the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI).
Vinik and Cascade Investment are building the development under the name of Strategic Property Partners in concert with the city of Tampa. Scialla will oversee the necessary work to assure the certification of the district and that the project’s individual buildings meet WELL Certification. The intent is that each building also will attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

The Tampa project came together last winter. “I was in Tampa last February for a meeting regarding the WELL Certification of another project,” Scialla says. “Jeff [Vinik] and I talked, and it completely gelled. As he became more familiar with the WELL Building Standard, he and his team saw this as a wonderful opportunity to become the first pilot community.”

The development is anchored around Amalie Arena, home of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Tampa Bay Storm professional football team. Phase one will include 1,000 residential units; a new 400-500–room luxury hotel; a 650,000-sq-ft office tower; 200,000 square feet of retail, restaurants, and entertainment venues; the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute; and an adjoining office building for health-related businesses. Green space, dog parks, and water features will be woven throughout.

With a $1 billion price tag, phase one is expected to be built out within five years. When all three phases of the project are completed, the development will encompass 6 million square feet of commercial, residential, and retail space, with a total investment of more than $2 billion. The first step, planned for mid-2016, is construction of a reconfigured roadway network and new infrastructure.

The project, informed by the WELL Building Standard, will reflect seven categories that relate to health in the built environment: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind. The overall aim, Scialla said, is to create a community that promotes nutrition, fitness, mood, sleep patterns, and performance for residents and visitors.

Scialla is also the founder and CEO of Delos, the company that pioneered Wellness Real Estate™ and WELL. Delos launched IWBI in 2013 after pledging to share WELL globally in the Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action. Delos Advisory Board members include Dick Gephardt, Deepak Chopra, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

The district will feature wide sidewalks that allow for more walking, bike lanes for cyclists, abundant public green space to encourage outdoor living, access to healthful foods, green infrastructure, and all the amenities of an urban waterfront.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is happy to see sustainability and health polishing the city’s profile. “Tampa is proud to be the first city in the world to be home to a WELL Certified District,” Buckhorn said. “Our city will demonstrate that city design, not just building design, can be healthy and sustainable, and it will position our community as forward thinking.”

As the first of its kind in the world, the Tampa development will set a global example of how a built environment can promote health and wellness, so its measurement system must be impeccable.

The WELL Building Standard is third-party certified by Green Business Certification Inc., which administers the LEED certification program and the LEED professional credentialing program.

Scialla says the rating systems are a seamless fit. “The WELL Building Standard is a perfect complement to LEED and all green rating systems,” he says. The project is setting another example, as well. IWBI, the driver of the Tampa district’s health and wellness goals, is a public benefit corporation, an emerging type of structure in the U.S. for corporations that are committed to balancing public benefits with profitability. IWBI, Scialla says, has committed to direct 51 percent of net profits generated by WELL Certification project fees, after taxes, for philanthropic purposes and investments focused on health, wellness, and the built environment.

Vinik sees health and wellness as one of the major social movements of our era. “In a competitive marketplace,” he says, “employees and employers both desire the quality-of-life investments that will make our district WELL.”

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For more than 50 years, the South Lincoln Homes development, operated by the Denver Housing Authority (DHA), had the lifeless look that was so rampant in mid-20^th century public housing: nondescript low-slung red brick buildings with cookie-cutter windows and thin strips of parched-looking grass in front, intersected by concrete sidewalks.

The units served a vital purpose—housing the city’s low-income residents. But the buildings did very little to inspire residents or anyone else who walked down the West 10^th Avenue area. In those times, designing safe, healthy, beautiful community spaces was as absent from planners’ minds as renewable energy, low-water living, or sustainable architecture.

Around 2010, the light switched on and everything changed. Today the drab buildings have been replaced by vibrant structures with eye-catching architecture and thoughtful lighting. The reconstructed development, with renewable energy systems and facilities that draw residents together in community, is winning awards for innovation and forward-thinking leadership, and earning LEED Gold and Platinum certifications.

Called Mariposa—Spanish for “butterfly”—the 15-acre transit-oriented development invites the mixed-income residents to thrive. They tend community gardens, play and exercise in a park, enjoy art, and engage in special features, such as a stairwell with an art installation that uses LED lighting to tell a Mayan story, which also encourages residents to use the stairs. Better access to the light rail stop adjacent to Mariposa gives the neighborhood another dynamic aspect and easier, more environmental commuting.

It took a trio of innovators to lead Mariposa and its residents—projected ultimately to number more than 1,000—to bring Mariposa to fruition: the DHA, which decided early on to take a risk, pushing the envelope on sustainability and inspiring its residents to transition to new living quarters; Mithun, a sustainable design firm in Seattle that integrated health aspects into the project and led the master plan design; and YR&G, a sustainability consulting firm headquartered in Denver, which headed the sustainable aspect. Mithun worked with 10 subconsultants, including Perspective3 in Denver.

When the DHA began planning the project, the aim was to improve the quality of life of residents. So when Mithun—including Erin Christensen Ishizaki, a Mithun partner who led the project’s redevelopment master plan—responded to the RFP for Mariposa, they began to look at residents’ health. Ishizaki and her colleagues found several areas in which health conditions were much poorer than for other Denver residents. For example, 51 percent of the children living in the DHA complex were living below the poverty line, compared to 21 percent in Denver overall. The crime rate was 248 out of 1,000, compared to an average of 69 out of 1,000 in Denver overall. “From an equity standpoint, it was hard to ignore,” Ishizaki says.

After Mithun got involved in the master plan, the firm used a Health Impact Assessment (HIA), which laid out community health indicators in a framework of sustainability performance. “That gave us an understanding of key health issues,” Ishizaki says. At that time, 2009, there were a few HIAs being used countrywide, but most looked at policy issues instead of design issues. In 2012, with one of Mariposa’s buildings completed, Mithun spearheaded the Mariposa Healthy Living Initiative, to integrate health into every aspect of the community’s design, construction, and operation. The Mariposa Healthy Living Toolkit, developed in 2012, continues to serve as a guide as health measures are folded into Mariposa’s design and construction.

Mithun was an inspiration for the DHA throughout the redevelopment project, says Ryan Tobin, the DHA’s director of Real Estate Development. By integrating health into smart, sustainable design, Mariposa has racked up some impressive numbers, including a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption compared to 2007, Tobin says. Mariposa has one of the largest solar arrays in housing developments throughout the country, he says, as well as a geothermal system. “Across the board,” Tobin adds, “we have low-flow toilets and a graywater reuse system.”

Mariposa’s individual buildings are achieving LEED Gold and Platinum certification. More impressive is its LEED Gold certification (Stage 2) for Neighborhood Development. “Very few places in the US, maybe just 150, have this designation,” says Karin Miller, sustainability manager at YR&G. Mariposa also won a 2012 Award for Smart Growth Achievement from the Environmental Protection Agency and a 2012 Affordable Green Neighborhoods grant award from USGBC, with support from the Bank of America Foundation. It was named one of the Top 10 US Neighborhoods by the American Planning Association, and received a 2010 HOPE VI grant, a federal grant program administered by HUD.

Earning the LEED Neighborhood Development certification for Mariposa was an especially big moment for YR&G, says Narada Golden, the current principal of YR&G’s New York office and YR&G principal in charge of the Mariposa development. “YR&G engaged the DHA, along with building and master plan design teams, to expand the definition of sustainability beyond energy,” Golden says, including factors such as health, wellness, and community empowerment. As Golden says, it adds up to “a sense of place at Mariposa.”

Ultimately, much of the success of a development project comes down to people; in this case it is Mariposa residents. “The biggest success is how well the DHA and the team were able to incorporate resident engagement in the process,” says Miller of YR&G.

Tobin sees how fully residents’ lives have changed, simply by observing daily life at Mariposa. Ridership at the light rail stop continues to increase, and organic community gardens draw enthusiastic residents. Donated space on the first floor hosts daycare centers and the nonprofit group Youth on Record, which creates music and conversation. Tobin sees residents living in community, working, and having fun.

“We’re creating places for kids to play, before- and after-school programs, art and literacy, a park with a swimming pool; it’s quite the neighborhood, with all the amenities.” Tobin looks at photos of the old South Lincoln Homes, and the new Mariposa. “I see vibrancy, safety, security, opportunity,” Tobin says. “It’s dramatically changed. It’s basically changed the way people look at their lives.”

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Kaiser Permanente turns to renewable energy to create a healthier environment.

 

To witness the profound effects of climate change, look no further than California’s Central Valley, where a record drought has left an eerily parched, dust-blown landscape. Scientists in California, the home state of healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente, are sounding dire warnings that unless greenhouse gases are vastly reduced, conditions are expected to worsen.

The effects of climate change, such as those found in the Central Valley, have the potential for great harm to human health, both directly and indirectly. Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, California, has a long history of linking the environment to human health. Now the healthcare provider and not-for-profit health plan, already a leader in green energy, will take another major step forward and purchase enough renewable energy to meet half of its electricity consumption in California.

Between two separate deals with NextEra Energy Resources and NRG Energy, solar and wind power will replace much of Kaiser Permanente’s need for fossil fuels, significantly reducing greenhouse gases, a known contributor to climate change. Kaiser Permanente facilities—including 38 hospitals and more than 600 outpatient medical offices countrywide—emit more than 800,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases a year. The facilities use almost 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year.

“We see climate change as a health issue,” says Ramé Hemstreet, Kaiser Permanente’s chief energy officer. “We think this is a tangible example of improving the health of the community we serve.” Purchasing renewable energy is one outcome of the organization’s bigger goal: a pledge in a 2012 Sustainable Energy Policy to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by almost a third, by the year 2020 (from a 2008 baseline). “That’s an absolute goal, despite the fact that we are adding members and building new facilities,” Hemstreet says. “Buying renewable energy is a big step in reaching it.” The wind and solar projects, in fact, will enable Kaiser Permanente to meet its goal three years earlier than expected.

By purchasing solar and wind power, Kaiser Permanente will do more than just reduce its reliance on carbon-based fuels; it also will reduce the water required to produce the electricity. “It’s a win-win,” Hemstreet says.

Climate change impacts human health directly and indirectly, Hemstreet says. Hotter days result in injuries and illnesses. Storms threaten public safety. Degrading air quality likely causes more respiratory disease, such as asthma. Warmer weather, as well, creates a change in pathogens, possibly changing the nature of disease—as Hemstreet says, creating “a larger range for certain diseases.”

Construction on the wind farm and solar installations that will supply the alternative energy is underway, Hemstreet says. The Golden Hills Wind Project, in Alameda County in Northern California, will be supplying energy later this year, after existing turbines are replaced with more efficient and more avian-friendly turbines. Solar energy will be provided by the Blythe Solar Power Project in Southern California’s Riverside County. It is expected to be operational by mid-2016.

NRG Renew, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, Inc., will install solar panels at as many as 170 Kaiser Permanente facilities, which includes medical offices, hospitals, and clinics. As much as 70 megawatts of on site solar will be produced through these solar photovoltaic arrays, primarily on carports and other parking structures that accommodate a combined 20,000 parking spaces.

Besides reducing the carbon footprint, Kaiser Permanente’s move toward renewable energy will save water. Wind and solar energy require essentially no water to operate, thereby not polluting water resources or threatening other needs for water, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. In comparison, fossil fuels require a great deal of water, and some forms, such as coal mining and natural gas drilling, can pollute sources of drinking water. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that extracts natural gas also requires large amounts of water.

Kaiser Permanente’s renewable-energy project is another step toward a safer, healthier environment and a deeper expression of the organization’s long-held understanding of a link between environmental health and human health.

As early as the 1960s, Kaiser Permanente staff questioned the role of the environment in human health. In 1961, staff members invited Rachel Carson, author of the groundbreaking environmentally themed book, Silent Spring, to speak to its staff physicians and scientists. More recently, Kaiser Permanente formed a partnership with Health Care Without Harm and the Business Renewables Center, begun by the Rocky Mountain Institute, to help the healthcare industry and the rest of the country’s business community develop more renewable energy resources.

Kaiser Permanente hopes to inspire other healthcare organizations to take a leadership role in reducing the potentially devastating consequences of climate change. In fact, it is the organization’s responsibility to help lead the way, Hemstreet says. “We hope to set the example for others in the healthcare community,” he says.

There are other healthcare organizations making an effort, Hemstreet adds, pointing to Gundersen Health Systems in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and its environmental program, Envision. “They’ve been a leader,” Hemstreet says. But compared with Kaiser Permanente’s enrollment of almost 10 million members, Gundersen is small. “I’m quite confident that the total amount of renewable energy that Kaiser Permanente is purchasing is larger than any other healthcare organization in the U.S.,” says Hemstreet.

It’s not too late to turn the ship around, Hemstreet and others agree. One study, by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, considered the feasibility and impact of generating 80 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2050. The conclusion: Global-warming emissions from electricity production could be reduced by approximately 80 percent.

Hemstreet sounds a note of optimism. “I certainly think we have to look now at how we’re going to adapt to a changing climate,” he says. “I think there’s still time to avoid a cataclysmic effect.”

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By Calvin Hennick

At Harvard University—an institution synonymous with supercharged intellects—employees are learning to ease stress and feel more productive through mindfulness meditation.

 

Leave it to Harvard University to make meditation more efficient. “To listen to a three-minute body-focused guided meditation, press 2,” a soothing female voice instructs callers to the school’s guided meditation hotline. “To listen to a four-minute breath-focused guided meditation, press 3.”
Callers who choose the second option are told to imagine their breath flowing gently in and out of their bodies. “When thoughts arise,” the voice says, “notice them without judging them or following them, and then gently escort your mind back to your breath.”

The hotline is one of several ways the university supports its mindfulness meditation program, which in turn is just one of many programs designed to promote employee health and well-being—one of the pillars of the school’s sustainability plan, which was released last year. The plan calls for a reduction

that well-being is considered an essential part of sustainability,” says Nancy Costikyan, director of Harvard’s Office of Work/Life, citing the research of University of Washington business professor Christopher Barnes. “If you think about sleep as a biomarker for well-being or work/life balance, he’s learning that people who have poor sleep are actually more likely to be worse negotiators and make poorer ethical decisions. That’s a surprising finding that shows that how we care for ourselves plays out in a range of spheres.”

—Nancy Costikyan

Costikyan’s office began the meditation program as a joint venture with the Harvard Center for Wellness two years ago. So far, it’s only been offered to Harvard’s central administration staff, a group that numbers around 5,000 employees, including those in health services, dining services, and the school’s legal department. Facilitators come into people’s workplaces and guide them through the six-week voluntary session with their coworkers. So far, around 550 staffers have participated.

“People are incredibly enthusiastic about it,” says Costikyan. After employees complete the six-week session, some continue to come to university-organized “sits,” and others have even gathered on their own in empty conference rooms to meditate together. “We’re very pleased that we’re able to demonstrate that this has wide, varied appeal.”

Mindfulness meditation, which has its roots in Buddhism, is a practice aimed at training a person’s attention on the present moment and accepting that moment without judgment. Often, people will sit in the familiar cross-legged position and keep a straight back, paying close attention to their breathing and casually dismissing any stray thoughts that pop into their heads.

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