Practice Greenhealth Awards empower sites and drive change
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We are thrilled that Providence earned 51 Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards in 2025.
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A record 32 Providence hospitals earned 50 awards, with 5 hospitals in the “Top 25” list. Providence also received the prestigious System for Change Award.
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Practice Greenhealth evaluates and recognizes hospitals that demonstrate sustainability through an extensive application process.
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Learn how our hospitals use the awards application process to find opportunities for change.
Practice Greenhealth Awards empower sites and drive change
Practice Greenhealth is a networking and membership organization that promotes sustainable health care by partnering with hospitals to help develop and deliver environmental solutions. The organization, along with Health Care Without Harm, awards hospitals that demonstrate environmental sustainability through an extensive application process designed to collect data and encourage systemic transformation. Here, we honor and celebrate this year’s award recipients and share how the award process drives change.
Congratulations to our 2025 award recipients
For the fifth-straight year, Providence won the prestigious System for Change Award, recognizing our environmental stewardship work throughout our system. In addition to this high honor, we are immensely proud of our 32 Providence hospitals that received the following awards:
Central Division:
- Covenant Children's Hospital: Emerald, Circle of Excellence – Climate
- Covenant Medical Center: Emerald, Circle of Excellence – Energy, Climate
- Kadlec Regional Medical Center: Partner for Change
- Providence Holy Family Hospital: Partner for Change
- Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital: Partner for Change
- Providence Medford Medical Center: Emerald
- Providence Milwaukie Hospital: Emerald
- Providence Mount Carmel Hospital: Partner for Change
- Providence Newberg Medical Center: Emerald
- Providence Portland Medical Center: Emerald
- Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center: Partner for Change, Circle of Excellence – Energy
- Providence Seaside Hospital: Emerald, Circle of Excellence – Water
- Providence St. Joseph Medical Center (MT): Emerald
- Providence St. Mary Medical Center (WA): Partner for Change
- Providence St. Patrick Hospital: Top 25, Circle of Excellence – Waste, GOR, Energy, Climate
- Providence St. Vincent Medical Center: Emerald
- Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center: Emerald, Circle of Excellence – Waste
North Division:
- Providence Alaska Medical Center: Emerald
- Providence Centralia Hospital: Emerald
- Providence Regional Medical Center Everett: Emerald, Circle of Excellence - GOR
- Providence St. Peter Hospital: Emerald
- Swedish Ballard: Emerald
- Swedish Cherry Hill: Top 25
- Swedish Edmonds: Top 25
- Swedish First Hill: Top 25, Circle of Excellence – Chemicals, GOR, Water
- Swedish Issaquah: Top 25, Circle of Excellence – Chemicals, GOR, Energy, Water
South Division:
- Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center: Partner for Change
- Providence St. Joseph Hospital Orange: Partner for Change
- Providence Little Company of Mary Torrance: Partner for Change
- Providence Saint John’s Health Center: Partner for Change
- Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital: Partner for Change
- Providence Mission Hospital: Partner for Change
Empowering sites and driving change
Applying for the Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards is a lot of work. But the work, perhaps even more so than the award, opens people’s eyes and encourages facilities to adopt new practices.
Brandi Kelley-Gustafson, RN, has worked at Providence hospitals for more than 20 years, first as an aide in memory care and, most recently, as RN manager of surgical and perioperative services and environmental stewardship coordinator at Providence Seaside Hospital in Seaside, Oregon.
For more than 15 years, Kelley-Gustafson has completed Practice Greenhealth Awards applications for her hospital. When she first began this work, the Providence WE ACT scorecard, which collects and analyzes data related to resource use, cost and carbon emissions in our 51 hospitals, didn’t exist. She relied heavily on the benchmarks she received from Practice Greenhealth.
Now, the WE ACT scorecard provides all Providence ministries with constant, current, concrete data related to environmental sustainability.
“It facilitates data-driven decisions and helps us identify our biggest opportunities,” Kelley-Gustafson says. “And it’s been instrumental in making it easier to complete the Practice Greenhealth applications.”
The awards process allows each hospital to learn more about its environmental impact and discover new stewardship opportunities. Kelley-Gustafson views it as a platform for upgrades, allowing hospitals to compare their data with other similar sites.
“It also gives us an opportunity to highlight our best practices and share that with others,” she says.
This year, Kelley-Gustafson is assisting all eight Oregon ministries with their award applications.
“One of our big opportunities with these awards is to increase or revitalize engagement with Green Teams across ministries,” she says. “The ministries are doing the work. They’re just not good at capturing their story. We’re helping them do that.”
The awards have a transformative impact on facilities, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
“Being recognized for your efforts can light a fire,” Kelley-Gustafson says.
Recognition comes not just from Practice Greenhealth but from Providence itself, including local ministries and leadership.
“Through the awards application process, we’ve demonstrated that our environmental stewardship work is successful,” Kelley-Gustafson says. “It saves money. It saves energy. It’s better for the environment. It’s better for our community. And when you have something concrete that you can put in front of leadership, you begin getting more support for the work.’’
A pathway to progress
Completing one application takes Kelley-Gustafson about 50 hours, and that’s with a decade’s worth of experience. One section might have one to three questions, but when one of those questions is answered, 20 additional questions might pop up.
“We’re talking 2,000-plus data points on the application, and they’re not easy questions,” Kelley-Gustafson says. “You have to go find the data. You have to calculate things. You have to know who to ask. And it’s specific questions, like, do you guys use ultraviolet light in your operating room? How many rigid containers do you use versus blue-wrapped containers for surgical services? It’s boots on the ground.”
But it’s this very process that serves as a valuable opportunity for reflection and growth.
“It gives us a really good foundation,” Kelley-Gustafson says. “It gives us insights to share with our leadership.”
Kelley-Gustafson also laughs, noting that Providence ministries can be a bit competitive, too.
“If we can say a ministry is doing better than us in one area, that drives change,” she says.
Spotlight: Seaside Hospital, Oregon
Kelley-Gustafson has been interested in environmental stewardship from an organizational standpoint her entire career.
“I was working in the operating room, fairly new, and I just couldn’t believe how much waste we had,” she says. “My manager had already implemented a recycling program, but we didn’t really have any champions in the operating room. I wanted to be that person.”
Kelley-Gustafson joined a Green Team while working at Hood River Memorial Hospital in Hood River, Oregon. She learned a lot from Mike Geller, senior sustainability program manager in Oregon, and Brian Chesebro, M.D., medical director. Geller and Chesebro are now Providence Environmental Stewardship core team members.
Kelley-Gustafson’s Green Team work resulted in several Practice Greenhealth awards. When the chief operating officer at the time moved from Hood River to Seaside, he asked Kelley-Gustafson to join him.
“He said, ‘I want the awards you got in Hood River,’” Kelley-Gustafson says.
Kelley-Gustafson got to work. And in the last six years, she has witnessed firsthand how the awards process has helped advance Seaside Hospital’s environmental stewardship goals. One example: reduced energy consumption.
“People who aren’t in environmental stewardship roles don’t always pay attention to or even know about our energy-use index,” she says. “Being able to take that information and partner with facilities brought awareness to the situation and gave us opportunities.”
In response, Seaside Hospital pursued an energy audit.
“The same thing happened for water,” Kelley-Gustafson says. She showed others what Seaside Hospital’s water usage was and what standards it should use compared to similarly sized hospitals. Then she and Dale Ellsworth, facilities, safety and security manager at Seaside Hospital, partnered with system support to have a water audit conducted ultimately resulting in recommendations such as converting to low-flow faucets, showerheads and toilets. This conversion significantly reduced water and gas usage saved money and helped Seaside Hospital attain the Practice Greenhealth Circle of Excellence – Water award.
“Having that concrete data to take to someone, translate it into terms they understand, and align it with where they have a passion to gain engagement is the ultimate best outcome,” she says.
A global movement
According to Practice Greenhealth, a record 493 hospitals participated in the Environmental Excellence Awards process. These hospitals all understand the impact climate has on public health.
“When we enter into health care, we take an oath to do no harm,” Kelley-Gustafson says. “We’re harming our communities and we’re harming our environments every day with our business practices. It’s time we acknowledge that. We have to really think about how we impact communities as a whole when making decisions.”
At Providence, we encourage our hospitals and all health systems to join together to create a healthier planet for future generations. The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards application process is a great place to start.
“I’m excited about how we, as an organization and as a ministry, now prioritize this work,” Kelley-Gustafson says. “I’ve seen so much growth in this area. In many ways, we’re leading the industry, and I’m excited that we’re sharing our tools and resources. I’m really optimistic about the growth of environmental stewardship as a specialty within health care."
Contributing caregiver
Brandi Kelley-Gustafson, RN, is RN manager of surgical and perioperative services and environmental stewardship coordinator at Providence Seaside Hospital in Seaside, Oregon.
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