Commitment to renewable energy earns CDHB accolade

MEDIA RELEASE

19 October 2016

Commitment to renewable energy earns CDHB an environmental accolade

The Canterbury DHB has today (Wednesday 19, October) been awarded an Energy-Mark Bronze Award in an official ceremony for its commitment to energy management, by New Zealand’s leading environmental certification authority, Enviro-Mark Solutions.

The setting for the short award ceremony was Burwood Hospital’s new boiler house – a state-of-the-art energy facility that runs on environmentally friendly wood waste.

Presenting the award, Enviro-Mark CEO Ann Smith said the Canterbury DHB, like any healthcare organisation, has the significant challenge to provide a reliable and constant energy source for a variety of essential medical services, along with maintenance services for the general health and well-being of its patients and staff.

“Achieving Energy-Mark Bronze certification is a great step towards real performance improvements that will mean Canterbury DHB will develop and a robust and efficient energy management system – reducing their impacts on the environment and their people,” Ms Smith said.

Accepting the Energy-Mark award, Canterbury DHB CEO David Meates said energy supply and reliability is crucial to all services at the Canterbury DHB, and a huge amount of work goes on behind the scenes to ensure that we supply and consume energy in our facilities as efficiently as possible.

“I am absolutely delighted we are able to demonstrate responsible energy management as an organisation, and I am proud to accept this Energy-Mark award – especially on behalf of our Canterbury DHB energy team, who have a vast amount of experience in a very technical field,” Mr Meates said.

“The next step for Canterbury DHB is to build on our achievement in the future through meeting the requirements for Energy-Mark Silver certification, and then finally Energy-Mark Gold.”

The new boiler house saves an estimated 6,000 tonnes CO2 emissions per year compared with using coal* to provide the newly-expanded hospital with heating and hot water. It’s also virtually smokeless: emissions to air are controlled via cyclones for the larger particles and a large electrostatic precipitator that captures and removes PM10 particles. Warm air is also recirculated within the facility to help dry the stored wood.

Enviro-Mark Solutions, which runs the Energy-Mark programme, is a subsidiary of Landcare Research, a New Zealand Government Crown Research Institute. To achieve Energy-Mark Bronze certification, an organisation has to demonstrate significant commitment to achieving performance improvements, including the implementation of an energy management system, objectives and targets, and the consideration of energy performance in long-term planning.

ENDS

*Figures obtained from the EECA online calculator.

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