Maine hospitals launch green initiatives to offset high energy consumption

Adam Jordan, a pharmacist at Northern Light, drives past the hospital in the pharmacy’s electric vehicle on Friday. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Hospitals in the state of Maine are launching major environmental sustainability initiatives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against climate change.

While hospitals are not obvious polluters – they do not, for example, have huge industrial chimneys that emit clouds of smoke – they are among the largest consumers of energy.

According to Tim Doak, environmental officer for Northern Light Health, there are several reasons why hospitals use so much energy: They are open 24 hours a day, are often located in older buildings with less efficient fuel systems (especially in Maine), use a lot of disposable products and require strong air circulation.

According to an analysis by Yale University, the U.S. healthcare system is responsible for 10 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions, surpassing other sectors known for polluting the environment, such as the aviation industry.

“Hospitals have historically been part of the problem,” Doak said. “Hospitals are very, very energy intensive. But we’re moving in the right direction now.”

According to Health Care Without Harm, an environmental group, the United States is responsible for 27 percent of global carbon emissions in the health sector, making it the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Despite having a much larger population than the United States, China is in second place at 17 percent.

Northern Light Health has eliminated the use of desflurane in all of its hospitals this year. Desflurane is an anesthetic gas that releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide each time it is used. Eliminating the gas will reduce the system’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by 408 tons.

MaineHealth’s Maine Medical Center has also stopped using desflurane and will phase it out at all of its facilities over the next few months, said MaineHealth spokesman John Porter.

MaineHealth and Northern Light are the two largest health systems in Maine.

Northern Light’s Doak said they have signed the healthcare pledge launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which aims to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050. About 15% of all hospitals in the U.S. – more than 1,100 in total – have signed the pledge since it was launched two years ago.

Northern Light’s initiatives to reduce emissions include using heat pumps to complement or replace existing fossil fuel-based heating and cooling systems, replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient LED bulbs, composting food waste, converting gasoline-powered vehicles to electric vehicles, and purchasing sustainable energy sources.

So far, about 15 vehicles of Northern Light’s 100-vehicle fleet have been converted to electric vehicles, and more conversions are planned in the near future, Doak said.

At Northern Light Pharmacy Fore River in Portland – on the grounds of Mercy Hospital – pharmacy staff use a Chevy Bolt EV for pharmacy deliveries and when they need to drive to other pharmacies, such as for a flu shot.

“We use it every day,” said Adam Jordan, the pharmacist in charge at Fore River. “We deliver to nursing homes, doctors’ offices, home care and hospices, and when there are referrals from other Northern Light practices.”

Doak said they are also considering adding solar power as a renewable energy source.

Mary McCarthy, a nurse and assistant vice president of supply chain programs and partnerships at Northern Light, said the system works to “purchase products from suppliers who are environmentally and socially responsible in their manufacturing.”

For example, McCarthy said they are working to recondition and reuse single-use products used to stitch patients and make incisions instead of throwing them away. Used air mattresses that used to end up in the landfill are now being refurbished and sent back to Northern Light instead.

“We are significantly reducing the amount of product we send to landfill,” McCarthy said.

Kelly Elkins, health system chief operating officer at MaineHealth, said the system has launched many initiatives since 2022, with an overall goal of reducing emissions by 25% by 2027 and becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

“We wanted to do our part to minimize our emissions,” Elkins said. “We recognize that we are big energy consumers and big emissions producers.”

Initiatives include replacing light fixtures with LED bulbs, insulating old pipes, using renewable energy sources for heating and cooling, electric vehicles, reducing food waste, eliminating desflurane gas, among others. Goals even extend to having people use the most efficient route to get to a location and using as much sustainably sourced food as possible in cafeterias.

Northern Light launched the Maine Health Care Climate Collaborative this year, which has so far attracted about 75% of health care systems.

MaineHealth has joined Practice Greenhealth, a national organization where hospital systems share ideas for reducing emissions.

But Jodi Sherman, director of the Yale Program on Environmental Sustainability in Health Care, told STAT News in 2022 that more needs to be done on the regulatory side because “voluntary measures are not getting us there fast enough or far enough.”

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