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Rob Roy
AdventHealth, based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, operates more than 52 hospitals in nine states, as well as urgent care centers, home health and hospice agencies, physician practices, and skilled nursing facilities. It operates more than 1,200 care facilities. AdventHealth identifies itself as the largest nonprofit Protestant health care provider in the United States. Due to its size and scope, AdventHealth is also a resource-intensive company. This system maintains a unique fleet of vehicles and an extensive global supply chain for sourcing. Treatment, medical equipment, medical supplies.
One of the sustainability solutions adopted by AdventHealth comes through its investment portfolio management.
At a time when extreme weather events are common, putting pressure on global supply chains and fluctuating prices for everything from electricity to medical supplies, systems this large also have unique vulnerabilities to external events. Masu. For these reasons, an internal team led by CIO Rob Roy and Chief Supply Chain Officer Marisa Farabaugh is working to transform systems to become more resilient and adaptive in the face of change. is.
In February, AdventHealth announced its first virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) in partnership with Colorado renewable energy developer Scout Clean Energy LLC, a portfolio company managed by Brookfield Asset Management. did. The contract will support the health system by covering electricity usage from a portion of Scout’s 14,000-acre, 180-megawatt Heart of Texas wind farm located in north central Texas.
Identifying the problem
Roy told CIO that the deal comes as part of a broader internal transformation effort the company is working to make the health system more sustainable.
“We started realizing there were a lot of opportunities to think about the way we work and how we can be a bigger part of the solution,” Roy explains. “A little more than two years ago, our Board of Directors updated the Enterprise Risk Management Framework, which identifies the top 10 risks facing businesses. In that compilation, they created a comprehensive framework for environmental sustainability. I put it on the list as needing a framework.”
Roy and Farabaugh were selected to lead the development of the framework and accompanying projects. The team started by collecting data to understand what the full emissions of the health system look like.
“We went through a process of understanding the different types of emissions from hospital systems and how to measure them,” Roy says. “We have thoroughly implemented Scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon accounting. Scope 1 is everything we can control, such as backup generators and vehicles. Scope 2 is purchased electricity. Scope 2 assumes emissions that occur when purchasing electricity. Scope 3 is everything you are exposed to upstream and downstream that you cannot directly control, such as your supply chain or investment portfolio. Changing these items has an impact. I need strength.”
Data collection took almost a year. The health system purchases electricity from approximately 30 different utility companies. Carbon accounting revealed that the hospital produces approximately 3 million tons of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, or 6 billion pounds of toxins. When AdventHealth’s team considered the results, they knew they needed to find ways to make the health system less resource consuming and more sustainable, Roy says.
New approach, new partner
The team started by going to the market for renewable energy deals that would allow health systems to reduce emissions from the electricity they purchase. The agreement with Scout will allow AdventHealth to source 40% of its purchased electricity from renewable sources. The deal came about in part because of the way the health system manages its investment portfolio, Roy said.
“The investment portfolio exists to support the operational business; it does not exist on an island,” Roy says. “We have always built our portfolio in a partnership-oriented way, meaning we have a small number of investment managers, about 12 in total. We manage about half of our portfolio in-house and the other half in-house. We assign external managers. We spend time talking to them about how they are looking to transform their portfolio companies and how that aligns with our goals. I’m spending it.”
Roy said the health system is currently working on a partnership that would allow it to receive the remainder of its purchased electricity from solar energy providers. The project is expected to provide 600 gigawatt hours of clean electricity to AdventHealth by the end of 2025. Other plans are in the works, including making the health system’s fleet more energy efficient and exploring more creative solutions.
“Nearly 4% of the total emissions are from anesthetic gases,” says Roy. “One of the most common gases is called desflurane, which is 2,500 times worse for the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. But by changing the way we use different gases, we can achieve significant reductions.” This year, we are working with doctors to find ways to make improvements and limit our impact on the environment.”
spread the word
The early results have created positive internal momentum for the health system to continue making changes. Roy said the buy-in from AdventHealth Board of Directors and CEO Terry Shaw has freed up the team to continue pursuing innovative projects and refining processes and procedures.
“It’s really difficult at first because the level of data required is so high,” says Roy. “If you’ve never done it before, you don’t necessarily know where your data is, right? And it might not be within a single system. For each point of data, it’s coming from different systems in different regions. You may need to collect data. We have 93,000 employees, and we may not know exactly who is the right person to call each hospital to get the amount of data you need. The good news is that once you do it, you’ll know where to go to get your data the second time. …We’ll also identify ways you can better collect and manage your data in the years to come. The process starts to run more smoothly.”
Roy and his team are also building partnerships and sharing lessons learned with their peers. AdventHealth has started working with Watershed, a carbon accounting platform, to track data. The health system is a signatory to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Climate Change Pledge and aims to reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions (emissions from field operations and purchased electricity) by 50% by 2030. We are working to reduce this by %. And with upcoming solar power partnerships, the health system is on track to be 100% renewable energy by 2026.
“We have only recently realized that the larger impact on the planet is why we are doing this work. It comes from ripples,” says Roy. “So we know we have to talk about what we do, not to bring glory to AdventHealth itself, but to impact others who are on the same journey. is.”
Tags: AdventHealth, emissions, Marisa Farabaugh, Rob Roy, scope 3 emissions, sustainability
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