Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Integrating Sustainable Design

Integrating Sustainable Design into the healthcare industry, particularly senior living facilities has been slow. The attached article is a good cursory review of the benefits - financial, social and environmental of why we as an industry should push forward and take the next step. The analogy provided using the Toyota Prius is an exceptional one – providing just cause as to why we need to look beyond the short-term issues and pay more attention to the long-term positioning of each senior care facility, not to mention what we are going to leave future generations.

The side bar, “Tools for the Task,” outlines a couple of the reference design tools available to the industry and I am versed with the opportunities that the USGBC LEED Rating System can provide, (see previous blog entries on the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center a LEED Silver Building designed by THW). and the GGHC – Green Guidelines for Healthcare. Although the GGHC is geared more towards Hospital design and USGBC is piloting a LEED for Healthcare System of their own, both can be applied towards Senior Care Facilities and to help this effort THW is working on a Sustainable Checklist for Senior Facilities to accomplish those goals – this can also be viewed within an earlier blog entry.

Please take the time to read this article and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments as THW would like to assist in any way possible to keep this overall industry movement moving forward.

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