Green Healthcare Initiative

Through an overall policy of reducing, recycling and reusing, Sacred Heart Hospital’s Green Healthcare initiative seeks to protect the environment, preserve our natural resources and reduce energy consumption in concert with our Franciscan tradition to respect creation, safeguard its people and practice good stewardship.

Learn more about our hospital's Green Commitment.

The Primary purpose of Sacred Heart Hospital's "Green Team" committee is to facilitate the protection of the environment and our natural resources in concert with the Franciscan tradition to respect creation and safeguard its people. The goal of the team is to assess past progress, current status and set best practice benchmark goals for further progress in reducing, reusing and recycling for Sacred Heart Hospital and its campus.

For many years, Sacred Heart Hospital’s sponsoring Sisters, the Sisters of Saint Francis, along with the Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS), have shared a mission directive to be good stewards of the earth, its natural resources and beauty. HSHS Mission Integration is committed to "Reverence for the people of God, the resources of the earth and the mission of the Church…" This mission collaborates in community efforts to protect the environment and reflects the Franciscan values of simplicity, hospitality, cleanliness and good stewardship. As a measure of accountability, every HSHS hospital allocates financial resources to programs and services that will provide the most community good, consistent with mission, vision and values. Sacred Heart Hospital follows in this Franciscan tradition.

We all have a stake in a clean environment. Because it is an inheritance that we pass down to later generations, we have a great ethical responsibility. The health and happiness of later generations depend upon our ability today to "reduce, reuse and recycle" in the midst of economic, industrial and scientific progress. Our concern for ecological responsibility follows from our commitment to a consistent respect for the life and the dignity of the human person, an ethic which extends respect for all creation.

In the spirit of St. Francis, Sacred Heart Hospital carries out its ecological mission by designing, maintaining and protecting greening efforts on its 29.3 campus acres. We believe that Green Healthcare recognizes and affirms the proven role of nature in healing. We have created accessible green spaces, our Healing Gardens, for the enjoyment of patients, their loved ones and our staff. Following in the tradition of St. Francis, the Healing Gardens were designed for people to experience the restorative aesthetic joy of year-round natural beauty. We find this to powerfully impart peace and serenity and to have an active role in our Franciscan healthcare.