Guidelines for Sustainability in Health Care have been developed by the Department of Health to assist us to embed sustainability into health care capital works.

The guidelines are as follows:

• Promote the principles and raise awareness of sustainability and wise environmental management
• Provide leadership to the community and industry by demonstrating methods of delivering sustainable initiatives
• Work closely with our employees, contractors, suppliers, clients, and the community to develop and implement environmental initiatives
• Provide environmentally sound places for the delivery of our services
• Adopt a pollution prevention approach to all our activities
• Operate in an environmentally sustainable manner by reducing waste through reducing demand for, reusing and recycling energy, water and other material resources
• Consider environmental aspects in the purchase of products and services, and endeavour to ensure the suppliers also meet high standards of environmental performance
• Comply with relevant Commonwealth and Victorian environment legislation, Occupational Health & Safety practices, and with the Victorian Government's environmental policies and initiatives
• Develop a monitoring program to assess our environmental performance and communicate our progress in achieving environmental management targets through annual reports distributed to stakeholders.

The guidelines and project budget ensure we achieve high-quality sustainability outcomes. Within the budget a further 2.5 per cent of construction cost is allocated for implementing sustainability initiatives to a level beyond standard practice, such as increasing the extent of renewable energy, sustainable materials or innovative technology. This allows the project to target initiatives that are tailored to the specific needs of the site, local environmental conditions, patient cohorts and community needs. This is an opportunity to be innovative and showcase to our community that sustainability is achievable.