December 5, 2001—The US Environmental Protection Agency has launched a new Energy Star energy performance rating that will allow hospitals, for the first time, to benchmark their energy performance against others on a nationwide scale of 1-to-100. The first hospitals to earn the Energy Star label are St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, NY, Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Calif., and Memorial Hospital in Carbondale, Ill.
According to EPA, hospitals use more than twice as much energy per square foot as office buildings. They consume almost 50 billion kilowatt hours of electricity at a cost of nearly $3 billion each year. If hospitals improved their energy efficiency by an average of 30 percent, the annual electricity bill savings would be nearly $1 billion, resulting in 11 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide emitted—equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.
Energy Star is a voluntary program that makes it easy for consumers and businesses to improve energy efficiency, save money, and help protect the environment by providing energy efficiency information for everything from new appliances to new homes. President Bush has called for increased public awareness of the Energy Star program in his National Energy Plan, as well as the expansion of the program to provide labels for additional building types including grocery stores and hotels.
For more information, visit EPA’s Energy Star Web site or call 888/STAR-YES.
