Opened in July 2022, the nine-story Phil and Jennie Gaglardi Tower at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) is a state-of-the-art facility that serves Kamloops and surrounding communities.
Not only was the tower built with direct input from medical staff, health-care teams, local health-care workers and Indigenous partners, it was also designed and built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standards.
LEED is a third-party certification program and an internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. The tower is the latest IH building to be recognized with a LEED Gold certification thanks in part to these energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable features:
Michael Morton, director, Major Capital Projects Delivery, oversaw the LEED certification process. “Achieving LEED certification starts right with the design and goes all the way through to construction and beyond,” says Michael. “Ten years ago, what used to earn you a point toward certification is now part of common building practices. So now we need to apply other construction strategies to earn points.”
According to the Canada Green Building Council, following LEED practices help lower carbon emissions, conserve resources, and reduce operating costs by prioritizing sustainable practices.
“With these sustainable building approaches, our patients, health-care workers and staff, as well as the wider Kamloops community, benefit from lower greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water savings, and better indoor air quality,” says Lorne Sisley, executive director, Corporate Services. “Building to LEED standards also supports our key goal of reducing the environmental impact of our operations, as outlined in our Climate Change and Sustainability Roadmap.”
All new Interior Health (IH) builds and major renovations are designed and constructed to achieve LEED Gold or similar building standards in line with the BC Government’s commitment to low-carbon, climate-resilient and sustainable health-care facilities.
When rebuilding, replacing or retrofitting our buildings, IH proactively plans to minimize climate risk, and assesses opportunities to not only upgrade our systems, but to design future facilities to minimize our greenhouse gas emissions and our energy use.
Other LEED certified IH buildings include:
Our Commitment to Sustainability
Climate Change and Sustainability Roadmap 2023–2028
Community Climate Resiliency Planning
Sign up to receive the Stories@IH email digest twice a week to your inbox.
HR has always come naturally to Maria, and she enjoys helping people achieve their career goals. Read her advice for job applicants.
/stories/meet-your-recruiter-maria-lopez-macdonald-recruiter
Dr. Dwight Ferris works to support and enable the patient voice throughout the health-care system and advance equity, diversity and inclusion.
/stories/we-are-ih-doctor-fights-infectious-diseases-and-inequality
These communication tips can help relieve the fears and worries of your children and young loved ones ahead of and during an evacuation.
/stories/how-speak-kids-about-evacuations-during-wildfire-season
Climate change is arguably our most urgent public health issue. Here's how we're finding new & innovative ways to create a more sustainable health-care system.
/stories/ih-using-innovative-approaches-address-climate-challenges
Seija discovered her passion for mental health & substance use work after she was posted to an inpatient psychiatric unit. She’s now a team lead at Kelowna MHSU
/stories/we-are-ih-mhsu-team-lead-inspired-strength-she-sees-others
Know the ways you can protect yourself from wildfire smoke, and learn how to recognize the health symptoms you might experience from poor air quality.
/stories/how-protect-yourself-poor-air-quality-wildfire-smoke
Receive news and alert posts, and Stories@IH blog posts, right to your inbox!
