California’s first green-certified hospital, Laguna Honda, is designed to promote recovery in a healthy environment that fosters community. The hospital is LEED Silver rated and offers several services and amenities not typically found in hospitals, including a hair salon, multimedia library with fireplace, state-of-the-art multimedia library and outdoor gardens with raised planting beds for growing vegetables and flowers. The hospital was developed through a joint venture between architecture firms Anshen + Allen and Stantec Architects, and is comprised of two residential towers and a four-story central building that open onto a central park, which is home to the Laguna Honda animal therapy center.

The 382,623-sq.-ft. $200 million patient tower at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital/Advocate Lutheran General Children's Hospital in Park Ridge was the first hospital in the Midwest to be awarded LEED Gold certification. The eight-story, 192-room tower, which opened in July 2009, has among the largest private patient rooms in Illinois, a focus on family-centered care, facilities to support the special treatment needs of adult and pediatric patients, technological advancements and an environmentally sensitive design. Visitors to Lutheran General's patient tower can learn more about the hospital's LEED journey by stopping in the Why Green? Gallery on the first floor of the patient tower. The gallery highlights the many ways the building respects the environment while providing healthier, more comfortable surroundings for patients, their families and the staff. The gallery also describes what Lutheran General is doing to help the community and environment stay healthy. Advocate Lutheran General Hospital is a not-for-profit, 645-bed tertiary, quaternary care, academic and research hospital, a Level I trauma center, and one of the largest hospitals in the Chicago area. Celebrating its 50th year at its Park Ridge location, it also is home to Advocate Lutheran General Children's Hospital, the only children's hospital in the greater north and northwest suburban area of Chicago and a major regional referral center for a broad range of neonatal and pediatric services.

With a focus on open space, sustainable design and the use of its own products, Bayer Corp. remodeling project at its over-50-years-old Robinson North American headquarters was its most ambitious and has won a LEED Gold rating for commercial interiors. In 2011 the company began renovation of two of its 15 buildings at the corporate campus into its “Workspace of the Future,” a $17 million build-out that enabled Bayer to bring in nearly 400 information technology employees from offices across the Parkway West and create an updated environment for nearly 825 employees at the 1,500-staff headquarters. The company was partly inspired by the space of its subsidiary MEDRAD, as well as by benchmarking other new offices at Westinghouse and Alcoa.The project was designed to provide both a modern environment in which its people will be most productive as well as create a more efficient operation. The project, being completed in stages, encompasses more than 110,000 sq. ft. in two three-story buildings. It is based on a design by IDC Architects, with the input of Toffler Consulting. There are plenty of Bayer products in the new offices, including a Bayer-invented clear polycarbonate material called Makrolon MAK, which will be used in the office’s work stations to allow more natural light into the workplace. The renovations also have brought in new LED lighting, low-flow plumbing to reduce water usage by between 20 percent and 40 percent, and Energy Star-rated heating and cooling systems. Bayer has also established an alternative fueling station for hybrid and electric cars. Thanks to its retrofitted HQ, Bayer Corp. has been admitted as a member of Practice Greenhealth, the nation’s leading membership and networking organization for institutions in health care that have made a commitment to sustainable, environmentally-friendly practices.

NorthShore Evanston Hospital, in Chicago's northern suburbs, considers sustainability part of its mission—“to preserve and improve human life.” The hospital system has worked to improve environmental conditions at each of its locations in order to support its community and reduce its carbon footprint. Retrocommissioning is NorthShore’s major tactic for reducing energy consumption at its hospitals. Upgrading building systems in its 100-year-old building has allowed for significant energy savings. The nonprofit has also upgraded lighting to T8 bulbs for higher efficiency, and turns down ventilation systems in non-critical areas during evenings. Waste is also an area of concentration in NorthShore’s sustainability plan. The hospital has implemented large comingle, fiber and alkaline battery recycling programs at its four hospitals and 124 off-site operating rooms. NorthShore also has a "Greening the OR" initiative to recycle plastic packaging from operating room medial equipment. Another aspect of the hospital’s fully-integrated waste management system is an agreement with its manufacturers to sterilize and reuse sharps containers 350 times before disposal. The hospital cafeteria has further supported sustainability by switching to reusable trays and non-Styrofoam cups, achieving a 90 percent-to-95 percent recycling ability.

Commissioning services are under way for the Fort Belvoir Community Hospital in Fort Belvoir, Va., a modern new community medical treatment facility of approximately 960,000 sq. ft. The LEED Gold project includes a hospital, laundry, special foundations, central energy plant, helipad, ambulance shelter, vehicle parking garage, and building information systems. Supporting facilities include utilities (water, sewer, gas, HVAC, steam and permits) electric services, paving, walks, curbs, gutters, fencing, storm drainage, site improvements, communication and information systems, fire protection and alarm systems, site improvements that include parking spaces, landscaping buffers and additional site amenities, public access space, and any needed repairs.

Kaiser Permanente's 20-story headquarters at 1950 Franklin Street in downtown Oakland earned Energy Star certification in 2009. The Energy Star certification is part of an ongoing effort by Kaiser Permanente to make all of its facilities more energy efficient. The effort to achieve Energy Star status began with the conglomerate's downtown Oakland HQ and branched out to all its facilities in Northern California. These energy-efficiency efforts are part of a larger Kaiser Permanente green buildings initiative that involves growing use of solar energy; greater use of natural light in new construction, low-water landscaping and use of low-emission flooring, carpeting and paints. Because of its commitment to sustainability and green building, in April 2013, Kaiser Permanente received a record 29 environmental excellence awards from Practice Greenhealth, a national membership organization for hospitals and health systems committed to environmentally responsible operations and care.

Sonoma Valley Hospital broke ground in 2012 on a $39 million upgrade to bring the hospital in line with state-mandated seismic standards while improving the 83-bed facility’s emergency department and giving the facility a green retrofit. The hospital’s new 16,000-sq.-ft., two-story addition to its west wing is expected be completed this summer. A new, 8,000 sq.-ft. emergency department with nine beds, a trauma room, a triage room, isolation rooms and a consultation room will be housed on the first floor. An 8,000-sq.-ft. operating suite will be on the second floor. It will contain three rooms that will be IT capable with cameras so that a physician can observe ongoing procedures from outside of the hospital. The new addition and infrastructure upgrades will create considerable energy savings for the whole hospital. Both hospital emergency generators are being replaced with equipment that meets or exceeds standards set fourth by the Bay Area Quality Management District and AB 32, which aim to lower greenhouse gas emissions throughout the state and region. The heating hot water and steam plant is also being replaced with state-of-the-art equipment that meets or exceeds the new air quality standards, according to the health care district. The project was completed in part with nearly $2 million in stimulus funds from the California Energy Commission. This low-cost, one percent interest loan, together with a $174,628 rebate from PG&E, has enabled the hospital to make important energy upgrades and reduce energy costs and greenhouse emissions.

In May 2013 Kaiser Permanente marked another milestone in its long-term sustainability strategies with its Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro, Ore., earning LEED Gold certification. Although Kaiser has earned LEED certification for many of its facilities, Westside Medical Center was the first LEED Gold rating awarded for one of its hospitals. The 126-bed, $344 million facility, which opens in August 2013, cost an additional 1 percent of the total cost of construction to achieve LEED Gold. Its features include: • Projected reduced water usage of 6.5 million gallons of water annually than conventional hospitals. • Net-zero energy parking structure that has a 100 kW solar photovoltaic array on its roof. • 70 percent of its power derived from clean energy. • Total energy costs projected to be reduced by 27 percent than traditional construction. • Other features include: low-emitting carpeting; wood composite insulation; minimal use of copper, PVC and mercury; vertical gardens that are irrigated with rainwater; and on-site renewable energy components such as water retention tanks. On the same day that Westside received its LEED Gold certification, Kaiser Permanente publicly committed to seek a minimum of LEED Gold certification for all of its new construction of hospitals, larger medical offices and other major projects. This is no small feat considering that the system plans to spend approximately $30 billion over the next 10years on hospital and medical office construction. Therefore, its LEED Gold commitment will affect about 14 million sq. ft. of real estate or more than 100 buildings.

The Veterans Administration Brockton Spinal Cord Injury Long-Term Care Facility (SCI) in Brookton, Mass., designed as a LEED Silver facility, will provide long-term inpatient care and outpatient clinical services for veterans with traumatic spinal cord injuries. For most of the 100 residents, whose average length of stay is 285 days, the SCI is their home and their window to the world. The design concept for the $188 million project is based on a simple idea: bring the natural world to the patients. The design takes advantage of sloping topography to link two levels of inpatient floors with the landscape, environment and the larger community. Clinical program elements and social areas are woven between the abutting grades and a network of green roofs and intimate courtyard gardens define tranquil moments of community for smaller resident groups. The two-floor building is organized around four distinct 12-bed houses on each level that extend like fingers into the landscape. Main Street, a linear spine running the length of the facility, links all the programmatic elements, the main lobby, the neighborhoods, the therapy programs and the two therapy courtyards, which allow daylight and nature to penetrate deep into the building. Besides offering multiple destinations along Main Street, these courtyards play a key role in providing a space for outdoor therapeutic activities.