LifeLabs is proud to announce it has earned an Environmental Excellence Award by Practice Greenhealth for its fourth consecutive year. The award recognizes LifeLabs, the only lab in North America to receive this award, for its achievements in building a more environmentally sustainable organization at its International Reference Lab in Toronto, Ontario, and Burnaby Reference Lab in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Practice Greenhealth is a leading international 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.
“We’re so thrilled to earn this award for another year; I am very proud of our team’s efforts that have supported our goals of sustainability and reduction of environmental impacts,” said Charles Brown, President and CEO of LifeLabs. Ensuring a healthier Canada for future generations is incredibly important to us at LifeLabs, which is why we continuously strive to make improvements each day to be kinder to the environment and be leaders in supporting sustainability in the health care sector.”
LifeLabs performs more than 120 million laboratory tests every year. Almost every process in diagnostic testing relies on clean water to ensure high quality test results. Returning clean, safe and usable water is an important part of our commitment to our communities and our environment. Our Laboratory Operations, Facilities, and Environmental Sustainability teams collaborated with AOI (Advanced Ozone Integration) water treatment experts in 2020 to replace the ozone water treatment system at our Burnaby Reference Lab (BRL). This unique system we developed breaks down the sodium azide and removes contaminants from the water before it is returned to the public system.
This is the most recent step forward in our ongoing efforts to be kinder to the environment, reduce waste, and support sustainability.
In addition:
- We conduct annual energy and waste audits to keep us on track as we continue to reduce our environmental footprint
- We’ve created extensive landfill waste diversion programs, as well as employee electronic recycling programs
- We have reported Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for the last three years to compare our business operations against Environmental, Social and Economic indicators and better understand the overall impact
- We have converted more than 2,200 fixtures to light-emitting diode (LED) technology in labs across Canada to increase energy efficiency
- We are adopting hybrid vehicles for our mobile service fleet.
To learn more about LifeLabs’ commitment to sustainability and reduction in environmental impacts, visit our website.
About LifeLabs
LifeLabs is Canada’s leader in laboratory diagnostic information and health connectivity solutions, leveraging innovative and personalized digital tools that empower customers to live their best life. Our dedicated and talented team of 6,000 employees supports 20 million lab visits and conducts over 100 million laboratory tests annually.
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
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