GLOBE MAGAZINE

Curing hospitals' addiction to the fossil fuels that make people sick Green hospitals may be better prepared to deal with Covid-19. By Nick Leiber, Updated March 27, 2020, 2:03 p.m.

It's noisy in the building systems control room at Boston Medical Center,

the largest safety-net hospital and busiest emergency services operation

in New England. Computers chime alerts, phones ring, and walkie-talkies

crackle with updates about the systems that keep the air clean, the

temperature consistent, and other functions needed for the well-being of

thousands of patients and roughly 6,000 clinicians and other staff who

work there. Planning for a large surge in COVID-19 cases adds an electric

sense of urgency in the control room - and throughout the hospital. ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA UCINI FOR THE BOSTON

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In addition to helping ready facilities for the outbreak, the dispatchers

are on a mission to eliminate energy waste in the massive buildings, some of which are over a century old.

Thousands of sensors spread across the 1.9 million square feet of building space on the hospital's South End

campus signal the dispatchers if a steam valve registers hotter than it should, a cold stairwell threatens to burst a

water pipe, or if something else requires immediate repair or maintenance by a technician. If someone opens the

door to the rooftop farm, where the hospital grows thousands of pounds of produce annually to serve patients

through its kitchen and food pantiy, they'll know.

Bob Biggio, the buoyant former merchant marine who oversees facilities and support services for BMC, likens a

hospital to an oceangoing ship: Both need to be self-sufficient and resilient in extreme weather and unexpected

disasters. Years before the coronavirus pandemic was upending life around the world, Biggio was preparing for

crises by changing the sprawling campus to work more efficiently. The eff01ts are paying off now as the hospital

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conserving protective equipment, and reducing clinical traffic through telehealth, among other measures. Unlike

a hurricane or other natural disaster that clinicians have to react to, BMC is dealing with the virus "much more

proactively," Biggio says. "It's all hands on deck."

Biggio's no tree hugger; he's been driving the bulk of the emissions reduction and other sustainability efforts he

initiated as part of a campus consolidation eff01t about a decade ago because they make financial sense,

especially at a hospital like this one, where more than half of the patients are from underserved populations.

Along v.ith a deal to offset its fossil fuel use by buying solar power from North Carolina, these moves have made

BMC about 96 percent carbon neutral for energy, and it's on track to become New England's first carbon-neutral

hospital by year-end, Biggio says. He's quick to acknowledge that BMC is still using fossil fuels but offsets them

with renewable energy credits.