Thanks to the focus and hard work of staff, VCH has had the highest energy savings of all of the health authorities over the past three years.

In a recent letter from BC Hydro, the energy company congratulates VCH for “outstanding energy efficiency results and ongoing support for conservation and energy management.” The letter says that in addition to having the highest energy savings over the past few years, VCH has avoided over $11 million in energy costs since 2008, a major achievement says Kori Jones, energy manager for Energy & Environmental Sustainability at VCH.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Kori says. “There has been a lot of great work happening that goes back to 2008 – that’s when the first major energy management program was launched and  those early projects are still making an impact today.”

“It’s a fantastic accomplishment to have the highest energy savings within the health care sector,” says Glen Garrick, sustainability manager for Transformation and Innovation at VCH. “All the health authorities have energy management teams tasked with energy conservation. But VCH led all the health authorities. And it should be noted that BC Hydro supports over 60 Energy Managers across British Columbia and various sectors, which includes 7 Energy Managers in the health care sector alone. Kori and past VCH Energy Managers have put in place a very successful energy management program that identifies opportunities and solutions for improved energy use efficiency across VCH sites.”

Credit to the staff

Kori credits the staff and teams across the organization for these huge savings.

“We really have had a lot of site support, specifically from the facility maintenance and operational teams across our core VCH sites – they really made this happen,” he says. “ None of this was possible without the facility maintenance and operational team, their site knowledge and ability to coordinate with other departments is essential to project success.”

He also credits partnerships with BC Hydro, Fortis BC and the Ministry of Health, putting forth funding to complete studies and implement energy and emission reduction projects.

Sometimes we need tenacity

Glen says there was another important factor in this achievement.

“Tenacity,” he states. “Tenacity in people and project management. This one will likely not make any official list of best practices in energy management but from experience I can tell you that nothing changes in health care without tenacity. The energy manager needs to have tenacity to push projects from initiation to completion. Hurdles will exist at every turn no matter how obvious the solution. VCH has seen all these savings because Kori and past energy managers have shown tenacity in their approach towards energy conservation.”

A lot saved

In the letter, BC Hydro says they “commend the environmental sustainability commitment of (VCH) to act as leaders with respect to environmental stewardship.” Kori is obviously very proud of this.

“11 million was saved since 2008,” he says. “It’s money that wasn’t spent on utility costs but on other more important resources across the organization.”