Reducing environmental impact with LEED Gold
Despite the new hospital being more than double the size of the current building, it will still emit significantly less greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases produced per square foot in the new hospital will be at least 70% less than the current facility. And the total reduction in greenhouse gases, from the current facility to the new one, will be at least 40%.
Our aim is for the new Mills Memorial Hospital and Seven Sisters buildings to be high performance, environmentally responsible buildings that operate efficiently and provide a comfortable indoor environment for the occupants, promoting patient, visitor and staff wellness.
As part of this goal, the new Mills Memorial Hospital Replacement project is working towards, and well on its way, to achieving LEED gold status, the second highest LEED designation possible.
LEED stands for ‘Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design’ and is the most common and widely used green building certification in the world. LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a building project was designed and built, or operated, to achieve high performance in six areas of human and environmental health. From the Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC) website, these six areas are:
- location & transportation
- sustainable site development
- water savings
- energy efficiency
- materials selection
- indoor environmental quality
“LEED helps owners and developers create high-performing, resilient buildings that reduce carbon emissions, save water, conserve energy and reduce waste. LEED also improves people’s quality of life by delivering the optimal conditions for health, comfort and productivity – such as better quality air and natural light,” according to CAGBC.
LEED requirements have advised many choices in the design of the new hospital and Seven Sisters – for example, lighting, waste management, construction materials, space allocation, number of exits and entrances and bike and electric vehicle stations, and more.
A facility’s power sources and systems are an especially major consideration in LEED. Northern Health analyzed and reviewed various alternatives for electrical and mechanical systems in the new hospital and Seven Sisters. Two major focuses included maximizing energy efficiency and minimizing ongoing costs throughout the lifecycle of the facilities.
The majority of the energy savings in the new Mills Memorial Hospital will come from recycling heat thanks to the new facility’s mechanical systems. Both the new facilities will have highly efficient, low-temperature heating systems. Heating will be primarily based on recovered heat from building exhaust, or simultaneously rejected cooling load. In peak winter conditions, the system will be supplemented with high-efficiency, condensing, gas-fired boilers.
The new facilities will also have a highly efficient cooling system. The system will use magnetic bearing chillers, the most efficient chillers on the market. These are frictionless compressor machines that do not require lubrication (oil); machines that require lubrication tend to degrade more quickly.
