Forté Health wins Gold Award for sustainability

Forté Health has gone where no South Island hospital has gone before by being awarded the Toitū EnviroMark Gold Award for environmental sustainability.

Forté Health Clinical and Risk Quality Manager Shaye Millar says it shows they’re making great strides on their goals to become carbon zero certified by 2021.

“Achieving the Toitū EnviroMark Gold Award is a giant leap forward for us. It’s required us to take a fine tooth comb to all areas of our operation. Our mission is clear, we want to be the first hospital in New Zealand to achieve Carbon Zero certification and this shows we are on our way there.”

When building their hospital in 2014 Forté became the first hospital to achieve a four star green certification. This was achieved through its more than $1 million investment in green features such as high performance LowE double glazed windows, thermal insulation and energy efficient cooling systems.

“Caring for our patients and the environment has been part of our kaupapa right from the start, and we’re constantly innovating so we can become more sustainable”. 

Some of those innovations include swapping a number of single-use plastic items such as medicine trays and cups for compostable replacements, and taking all used batteries offsite for recycling.

As part of the Toitū EnviroMark Gold Award auditing process Forté was commended for its impressive leadership-led process and its strong culture of continuous improvement.

“What we’re doing shows the rest of the health sector that there’s not a choice to be made between people’s health and the health of the planet – with environmental leadership, both can be achieved,” says Shaye.