Designing sustainable health infrastructure

When we visit a hospital, the main thing on our mind is getting better – or seeing our loved ones get better. We’re probably not thinking about all the energy and water and single use plastics being consumed, or the amount of waste being generated.

But when we design our hospitals and healthcare buildings to be more environmentally sustainable, the benefits aren’t just to the environment. Sustainable design may lower environmental impacts and operating costs, but it also goes further by creating healthier, healing environments for patients, visitors and staff.

Tiernan Humphrys is the Environmental Sustainability Manager at the Victorian Health Building Authority (VHBA). As Tiernan explains, how we design and build our hospitals affects the healing environment.

A sustainable hospital involves more than just some solar panels on the roof. There are a number of design initiatives we can embrace to lower emissions and reduce waste.

As Tiernan explains, a sustainable hospital can take many different shapes and forms and goes well beyond just low energy and water consumption. 'The whole footprint of a hospital needs to be understood and managed, from the supplies required to deliver good health outcomes for patients, staff and visitors, right through to the disposal and removal of materials used. The supply chain of a hospital is long and complex and we need to focus more on investigating the sustainability impacts of manufacturing, transporting, consuming and disposing of these products.'

A sustainable hospital might include:

A great way to make hospitals more energy-efficient is to harness energy from the sun. Solar panels can help lower energy bills and cut greenhouse gas emissions, making the running of public hospitals greener.

The Victorian Health Building Authority has committed to a target of delivering five per cent of the public health system’s electricity from solar energy. We’re achieving this by installing large collections of solar panels on top of hospital roofs, known as solar arrays.

Solar panels on 60 per cent of the roof

For all new hospitals being built in Victoria, 60 per cent of the roof space is being designed for solar panels. This involves several design considerations including roof spaces that face the right direction for maximum exposure to the sun. We’re designing areas of continuous space for the solar panels to be located. And we’re designing roof spaces that aren’t shaded by trees or other buildings and have limited building equipment spread across the roof area.

Tracking solar data

Our solar arrays are designed to generate energy and report performance data on how much electricity is being generated. In 2018-19, solar arrays on Victoria’s public hospitals generated 1.4 gigawatt-hours of electricity. In 2020-21 this increased to 9.8 gigawatt-hours – reducing carbon emissions by some 11,000 tonnes.

The Regional Health Solar Program

As well as designing new hospitals to include solar arrays, we’re also retrofitting existing hospitals roofs with solar. The $13.5 million Regional Health Solar program is a Victorian Government initiative to install solar panels on rural and regional hospital rooftops.

The program has installed solar arrays with an aggregate generating capacity of 7.5 megawatt-peak on 59 health facilities across the state. Solar arrays on a further 20 health facilities, with a capacity of 1.3 megawatt-peak, were installed and completed in 2021.

Once the program is complete, the solar panels installed are set to generate two per cent of our state-wide hospital electricity consumption. Hospital electricity costs will also be reduced, with a total estimated saving of $2.7 million in energy expenditure every year.

In 2017, the Victorian Government set a target for Victoria to be net carbon zero by 2050. By including energy efficiency features in our hospital and healthcare buildings, we can help meet this goal.

Transitioning to all-electric

All-electric hospitals are buildings that don’t use any gas for their heating or sterilisation equipment, meaning they are powered entirely by electricity. Where possible to do so, moving to all-electric buildings would support the 2050 net zero carbon target, although it will take some steps to get there.

The adoption of all-electric healthcare facilities presents the opportunity to reduce the emissions profile of public hospitals when the Victorian Government procures renewable electricity for Government operations beginning in 2025. However, designing and engineering all-electric facilities will present challenges for the industry as we move forward.

Building for energy efficiency

By using energy-efficient design, our healthcare buildings can be comfortable, healthy and use less resources.

Some of the energy-efficiency features include:

Choosing the right place to build

It’s not only how we build hospitals and healthcare buildings that can have an environmental impact. Where we choose to build our facilities is important too.

We can lessen our impact by making sure we:

• don’t build on land with recognised heritage or conservation value
• avoid land that is better used for agriculture
• avoid land which might be susceptible to erosion, bushfires or landslides.

Tiernan adds that during construction and afterwards, ‘we can lessen our environmental impact by keeping as much native vegetation as possible. This in turn protects habitats for local wildlife.’

Using landscaping to increase biodiversity

In support of choosing good building design, we can reduce the impact of our buildings by taking steps to increase biodiversity around the facility or campus.

Biodiversity around a building or across a health campus will include increased use and variety of plants and structures to support differing and complimentary ecosystems.

Thoughtful landscaping that uses locally indigenous plants and trees can provide habitats and food sources for our local wildlife, including insects. If the building site is close to a conservation area, we can go even further by creating habitat corridor links for our animal friends

Sensory gardens

Even small amounts of time spent in nature can improve our mental and physical wellbeing. Spending time in a garden can elevate our mood and reduce stress.

A great way to capitalise on this is to include sensory gardens in our building and landscaping designs. Sensory gardens are carefully designed to provide calmness and connection of our senses. They go beyond the scope of an average garden experience to heighten our awareness of our interaction with nature and ourselves.

Biophilic design

Biophilic design is about bringing nature into our buildings and designs to promote wellbeing for health and the environment.

But it’s more than just arranging some plants in a room. Biophilic design recognises that patterns, materials, sounds, smells and light can all contribute to feeling good. We can elevate the moods of the people who use our hospitals and healthcare buildings by blurring the division between inside and outside, bringing nature in by using natural patterns and materials.