How to Leverage Practice Greenhealth’s 2025 Environmental Excellence Awards for Your Health System
Is your health system looking to show off its sustainability leadership or track its environmental progress? Look no further. Every year Practice Greenhealth, a membership organization that provides technical assistance to help hospitals and health systems green their operations, offers its members an opportunity to earn recognition for their sustainability efforts through the Environmental Excellence Awards program. The awards enable health systems to establish themselves as leaders in protecting community health through reductions in carbon emissions and other pollutants. The application also provides a comprehensive framework for developing sustainability programming across a range of impact areas, such as Climate, Waste, Water, and Greening the OR.
Figure 1: Sustainability Impact Areas
Practice Greenhealth’s Environmental Excellence Award includes 11 sustainability impact categories that can help guide a health system’s sustainability journey.
Source: Practice Greenhealth, 2024.
Completing the full application involves considerable data gathering, although changes to the 2025 application increase health systems’ flexibility in what and how much they need to report, enabling greater emphasis on prioritized work at their facilities. The process of completing an Environmental Excellence Award Application at your facility has the benefit of connecting you with internal peers that oversee the diverse operations represented within each impact area. Reviewing award questions and data requests with these peers provides a shared understanding of criteria for a best-in-class sustainability program and gathers information on current sustainability work and goals in your organization.
While submitting a Practice Greenhealth Award Application isn’t necessary to create a sustainability plan, the platform is designed to align with data-driven sustainability programming, science-based climate targets, and complementary industry initiatives such as the HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge and The Joint Commission Sustainable Healthcare Certification. Kimball Sustainable Healthcare (KSH) has deep expertise supporting health systems in completing the Practice Greenhealth application, determining where the application fits into your hospital’s data management strategy, and recommending how to use the application as an engagement and program development tool inside of your organization. Read on for tips for making the most of the Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards in 2025.
What are the Basics?
The 2025 Practice Greenhealth Award application opened on November 4. Applicants have five months to complete their submissions, which are due April 9, 2025. The application consists of 11 pages corresponding to the sustainability impact categories above and includes both quantitative questions, such as energy use and waste metrics, and qualitative questions, detailing program elements such as policies, initiatives, and best practices. Practice Greenhealth uses a comprehensive scoring method to arrive at a final score for the award. Health systems can earn a range of awards depending on how much data they submit and the depth of their sustainability efforts.
“I really would not have been able to get [the award application] submitted without this team...I can’t underscore how much this team stands out.”
What’s New in 2025?
Practice Greenhealth recently announced awards updates emphasizing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reporting. Table 1 shows the requirements for three commonly distributed awards; each requires filling in the Climate Page, including Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and at least one Scope 3 emissions category. Practice Greenhealth also sets guidance on the number of pages (impact area sections) applicants will need to complete in order to qualify for specific award levels, allowing health systems to prioritize focus areas within the application.
Table 1: Minimum Requirements for 2025 Awards
The Climate Page is required for all award submissions. Partner for Change and Emerald awards are distinguished by the number of program pages that need to be submitted for eligibility.
There are two options for calculating GHG emissions for the Climate Page:
Practice Greenhealth can calculate emissions from data entered
A participant can manually enter previously calculated emissions into the Climate Page with a report demonstrating the GHG Protocol methodology.
The emphasis on emissions is expected to continue; in 2026, GHG emissions reductions will be the primary performance indicator.
Where Do I Start with Data Collection?
Use Available Data and Current Initiatives to Get Started.
Health systems applying for the Environmental Excellence Awards for the first time might focus quantitative data-gathering efforts on Scope 1 (medical gases, natural gas, generator fuel, fleet, refrigerants) and Scope 2 (purchased electricity) GHG emissions required for the Partner Recognition award.
The Scope 3 GHG emissions categories featured in the award application include transportation, waste, food, business travel, employee commuting, leased assets, and purchased goods and services. To choose a priority Scope 3 category to include in reporting, consider the availability and quality of requested quantitative data, as well as existing initiatives or programming underway in your institution. For example, if your hospital has an active green team working on waste reduction, engage them in the application process and leverage any data and insights they’ve acquired when completing the relevant pages. Likewise, if your organization tracks staff commute or tele-health visits, prioritize completion of the Transportation page.
How Can I Simplify Data Gathering?
For health systems that already submit to Practice Greenhealth, start by examining any data gaps from previous applications and determining how to gather missing data. Key to a productive and organized reporting process is timely, reliable data. KSH offers a few best practices to achieve this aim:
Request and track data on a monthly basis to socialize vendors to deliver data reliably, and to trend data over time.
Quality check and analyze the data at least quarterly. Resolving data challenges can be a lengthy process. Identifying outliers or missing data early allows time to resolve challenges before the application due date.
KSH has built comprehensive tools for tracking and organizing health system data. These tools make annual Practice Greenhealth reporting easier while informing internal sustainability programs during the year. If you would like us to assist your organization in completing your Practice Greenhealth application, and in turn, supporting data-driven sustainability efforts, please reach out to our KSH experts!
Why Not Start Today?
Regardless of where your health system is on its sustainability journey – whether just getting started or building on successes – the Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards application offers an engaging and educational platform to set organizational goals, track and benchmark environmental impact, and integrate programmatic elements and best practices to drive decarbonization and sustainability excellence. The application just opened, and you have five months to complete it. KSH is happy to support you in the process. Why not start now? Visit the Practice Greenhealth awards platform and resources below to get started!
Useful Resources
For more details on the Practice Greenhealth awards, please see the following resources.
