The 2025 Environmental Excellence Awards are Open

The 2025 Environmental Excellence Awards are open, and will be due next Wednesday, April 9 at 5pm Pacific Time.

Here are three things you can do today to make sure your application is ready to go:

  1. Confirm your facility's name is correct for your award. Question 23 on the Statement of Accuracy Page imports previous applications, so make sure your facility’s name appears exactly as you want it to appear on your award plaque, and that it’s updated if it’s been changed.
  2. Write success stories for each page you're submitting for scoring. Take five minutes to write out concise success stories about the accomplishments or projects that you are the most proud of in that program area – tell us what you did and any outcomes you measured. Success stories contribute to three of the four scoring frameworks, and are a great way to show us where your focus was for 2024.
  3. Use the "Review this application button" early to get ahead of any data errors. Make sure you aren’t missing any required questions, and double-check any data flagged as “out of range.” If you’ve confirmed those values, the comment boxes are a great place to capture notes about your work. You can use this button as many times as needed. 

If you have questions, need assistance or technical support, or need help setting up or updating an awards account, please contact the Awards team or call our support hotline at 888-378-2259. If you are a VA facility, email vasupport@practicegreenhealth.org or contact our hotline with inquiries. 

Example Success Stories

Success stories are a vital piece of the Environmental Excellence Awards. Not only do narratives that demonstrate concise and complete stories with outcomes contribute to three of the four application scoring frameworks, but stories also give applicants like you an opportunity to highlight achievements and wins on your sustainability journey. 

To help you fill out your application this year, we’re highlighting some great examples from the 2024 Environmental Excellence Awards. 

Find inspiration for your sustainability programs by reading this week’s feature from Harborview Medical Center:

Harborview has worked on creating awareness around the issue of using tape on patient positioners in order to maximize the product's life and prevent creating more waste. This has been a problem in the past because the OR department has been forced to discard and replace many of their positioning devices. Tape can be difficult to remove and can cause tears in the patient positioners, which is an infection control risk. This is an issue of concern because these devices are reusable but many of them are large and made of gel that will last in landfills, creating an abundance of unnecessary waste when they have to be thrown away. To combat this issue, education is being provided in services with regulatory rounds to check positioning devices. There have been discussions with the staff to remind them not to tape positioning devices and to be careful with them to avoid rips and tears to ensure the positioners last as long as possible and to avoid creating more waste and having to replace them. This education and regulatory rounds have been effective as the quality of devices is being regularly checked and there has been a reduction in the number of devices that have to be replaced.