The Envirometer keeps you on your toes

Mr De Graaf is the director of the Ter Reede care centre, one of the largest homes for the old and infirmed in Zeeland province. On the scan he had done with the Envirometer he had this to say:

We were curious to see what options were available for cutting back on energy and waste, particularly. For us these are substantial cost items. One's own feeling is that one's doing the best one can. The Envirometer tells you whether or not that's correct. 

Just over half our waste consists of incontinence pads. We now collect these as a separate waste stream and have them picked up by a firm that processes them in an environmentally friendly way. As if that weren't enough, this mode of disposal is also cheaper. [...] I should add that it takes our staff more time to properly separate the waste.

The Envirometer keeps you on your toes. [...] Under our environmental license we obviously have to comply with regulations. [...] We must make sure our fat sumps are regularly emptied, for example. The scan indicated that we needed to pay more attention to this issue.

Envirometer Nursing homes

In the Dutch province of Friesland, the envirometers of nursing homes are compared over the period of 2006 and 2007. The nursing homes did this comparison in cooperation with the province of Friesland and the "Milieuadviesdienst Friesland" (enviromental council of Friesland).

Characteristics

The Envirometer and Efficiency Indicators of an average nursing home are calculated from the 2007 data of eight nursing homes. These are 15 homes for the elderly and 3 nursing homes; their enviromental characteristics are comparable. Protected housing is not taken into account because of the diffrence in environmental characteristics.

The production volume of the houses is expressed in 'number of occupied beds', which is the number of bed times the occupation degree. The number varies between 25 and 175.

Envirometer

The circular histogram visualises the Envirometer of an average nursing home. From the histogram it can be concluded that gas (for heating) takes care of the biggest environmental damage (37,6 %), followed by electricity (20,9 %). Commercial waste gives a contribution of 25 % and commuter traffic 10,5 %. Business traffic, Hazardous waste, water and waste water together give a contribution of around 6 % of the environmental damage.

Efficiency indicators