Explore this page
Climate action Our efforts to meet provincial emission targets

Climate Action

Learn how we’re working toward reducing our environmental footprint at Interior Health, through lowering greenhouse gas emissions and responding to climate change.

location

Climate action

As a health-care organization we use energy, fuel, materials and equipment that produce waste and emissions to deliver health care services for you. Minimizing our environmental footprint, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and considering how we adapt to climate change is a priority to our teams, patients, communities, and many other stakeholders we work with every day. 

Our commitment to environmental sustainability and climate action supports IH’s mission of working together to improve the quality of life for all individuals and communities.  

Importantly, we are improving our environmental footprint not only to mitigate the effects of climate change, but because we understand the link between climate change and health. A healthy planet supports healthy people.

We are proud to be part of B.C.’s Carbon Neutral Government program – legislated under the Climate Change Accountability Act (CCAA) – all provincial public sector organizations (PSOs) must be carbon neutral, and through this, we:

  • Measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from buildings, vehicles and paper use
  • Reduce emissions as much as possible by conserving electricity and fossil fuels
  • Offset remaining emissions by purchasing an equivalent amount of high-quality, made in B.C. carbon offsets
  • Report annually on progress through the Climate Change Accountability Report, formerly the Carbon Neutral Action Report

Our efforts to meet provincial emission targets

As a public sector organization, we contribute to B.C.’s legislated targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030, 60 per cent by 2040, and 80 per cent by 2050. To do so, we focus our efforts on the four key areas outlined below: 

Greening operations

Given that the health sector is a heavy user of resources, we have identified projects and initiatives to green our operations. With energy accounting close to 95 per cent of our reportable greenhouse gas emissions, energy conservation and emission reductions is a key area of focus for greening operations. Examples of some initiatives to green our operations include:

  • Focusing on energy reduction projects that keep our facilities running - installing high efficiency boilers, chillers, building automation and controls, chiller replacements and lighting retrofits to name a few
  • Identifying and developing a pathway to transition our gas-powered vehicles and infrastructure to support more electric vehicles, both in our fleet and public parking areas
  • Collaborating with our supply chain partner to embed and assess our product and service procurements using environmentally-friendly procurement principles 
  • On-site recycling programs at most of our facilities to divert waste from landfills
Culture change and leadership

As part of our strategy, we focus on creating sustainable workplaces through:

  • Involving our teams through a green-team program known as Sustainability Associates 
  • Collaborating through partnerships and establishing communities of practice, within our organization and across provincial/municipal governments, Indigenous peoples, industry, academia and non-profit organizations to achieve environmental goals

Building more climate literacy and capacity of our staff to consider the environment in our day-to-day work, is a core tenet of our Sustainability Associates program. In 2021, we began a process to revamp how we engage with teams on environmental sustainability in our organization.

Climate resilience

With direction from CleanBC, and the Climate Preparedness and Adaptation Strategy, we have started to better understand how the following effects of climate change may pose risks to critical infrastructure, the way we deliver services and to the health of our populations:

  • Coastal erosion
  • Thawing permafrost
  • Increases in heat waves & droughts
  • Wildfires
  • Flooding
  • Ecosystem changes

We understand that responses to climate change require both:

  • Reductions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
  • Increasing the resilience of assets, services and operations by adapting to a changing climate 

Along with our efforts to green our operations, we are taking action to improve our understanding of the risks posed by the impacts of climate change to our assets, services and operations. There is a lot of work that still needs to be done, including: 

  • Incorporating and/or strengthening the consideration of climate change in our planning, program design and delivery considerations
  • Integrating climate change adaptation into the design, construction and operation aspects of capital projects
  • Applying climate resilient building design principles into our new building designs and retrofits
  • Increasing training and support on assessing climate change impacts, undertaking climate change risk assessments and developing adaptation actions, and facilitating sharing of best practices and lessons learned
Communications & reporting

Alongside our efforts to engage our employees around environmental sustainability initiatives, we complete a yearly report known as the Climate Change Accountability Report, formerly known as the Carbon Neutral Action Report. 

Other reports of interest include:

STAY CONNECTED

Receive alerts, news and stories@IH right to your inbox!

Sign-Up
mail