The 2026 Environmental Excellence Awards are open and will be due on Wednesday April 15.
November is a time to reflect and give thanks. At Practice Greenhealth, we have a lot to be grateful for, and want to recognize these accomplishments with you, our partners. Every day in November, we'll be sharing data to show our appreciation for all of your hard work. Today, we are grateful that facilities reducing meat purchases achieved an impressive 17.5% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from meat and poultry. Among the 85 facilities that reduced any animal products, there was an 18.3% reduction in total GHG emissions from all animal products. What’s remarkable is that these emission reductions exceeded the percentage reduction in pounds purchased, which means facilities aren’t just buying less - they’re also making smarter choices about which proteins they serve.
We're pleased to share that updates for the 2026 cycle have been focused on user experience updates and increased transparency. We have:
- Cut questions on the application by 20%
- Created a new version of the Partner for Change specifically for systems to share their system-level data and their successes.
- Made the autoscore (one of the 4 scoring frameworks we use) transparent by publishing how much each question is worth on the Facility type 1 pdf of the application.
For more specifics on how the awards application has changed, check out the "What's New in 2026" video on the Metrics and Awards landing page of the Practice Greenhealth website, or join us for our second and final "Excel at your Environmental Excellence Awards application" partner events to hear a walk through of those changes and ask any questions you may have
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 888-508-0198.