Toronto, ON (May 14, 2019) – LifeLabs is proud to announce that it has earned the prestigious Environmental Excellence Award for a second consecutive year. This award recognizes LifeLabs for its achievements in sustainability and waste reduction at its International Reference Lab in Toronto and Burnaby Reference Lab in Burnaby. LifeLabs is the only organization in Canada and the only lab in North America to receive this award.
The Partner Recognition Award is offered by Practice Greenhealth, a leading US organization dedicated to environmental sustainability in health care. The award is one of the Environmental Excellence Awards given each year to honour environmental achievements in the health care sector.
The award was received by Louise Nagy, LifeLabs’ National Director of Community & Environmental Sustainability at the CleanMed conference on May 9th in Nashville, Tennessee.
“I am proud to work for an organization that cares about the environment and the impact it has on our communities,” Nagy said. “LifeLabs is driven to improve the health outcomes of Canadians. We make improvements each day to be kinder to the environment because that results in healthier Canadians.”
LifeLabs performs more than 100 million laboratory tests every year, and every diagnostic test relies on clean water to ensure a high-quality result. To reduce waste, LifeLabs invested in an ozone treatment system to remove contaminants from the water before returning it to the public system. LifeLabs has also introduced other environmental improvements including:
- Recaptured greater than 75% of methanol used by the Hematology departments at five major labs, with the remaining 25% picked up by a chemical waste hauler
- Converted more than 2,200 fixtures to light-emitting diode (LED) technology in labs across Canada to increase energy efficiency
- Initiated conversion of 70% of its mobile service fleet to hybrid vehicles
- Ongoing waste audits and diversion improvements
“We’re honoured to be recognized for the innovation of our operations to promote environmental sustainability and waste reduction,” says Tanya Martin, Vice President of Laboratory Operations for LifeLabs. “It’s important for us to be an environmental leader in an industry that has historically produced a lot of waste. We believe we’re making a difference to the environmental sustainability of our communities.”
About LifeLabs
LifeLabs is Canada’s leading provider of laboratory diagnostic information and digital health connectivity systems, enabling patients and healthcare practitioners to diagnose, treat, monitor, and prevent disease. We support 20 million patient visits annually and conduct over 100 million laboratory tests through leading edge technologies and our 5,700 talented and dedicated employees. We are a committed innovator in supporting Canadians to live healthier lives, operating Canada’s first commercial genetics lab and the country’s largest online patient portal, with more than 2.3 million Canadians receiving their results online. LifeLabs is 100% Canadian owned by OMERS Infrastructure, the infrastructure investment manager of one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans. Learn more at www.lifelabs.com.
Media Contact
Cortney Cook, Communications Specialist
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