Nigeria: A Lagos-based hospital, Evercare Hospital, has become the first hospital in Nigeria to receive the prestigious Final EDGE Certification as a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly designed building/health care project.
Sintali-SGS, the environmental certification body which issued the certification and a global certification partner for International Finance Corporation’s EDGE green building programme, said Evercare Hospital’s resource-efficient design achieved 38.81 per cent reduction in energy usage, 20.50 per cent in water consumption and 42.07 per cent in materials’ embodied energy compared to a local benchmark.
As part of the Evercare Group of Hospitals, the hospital provides integrated health care across Africa and South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kenya. It also offers a range of specialty medical and surgical services and health care to communities.
“We are excited that Evercare Hospital, Lekki has achieved the Final EDGE Certification. This milestone is testimonial to the hospital’s vision for leading sustainable change in Nigeria’s health care industry. It also shows that it is possible for hospitals, which consume 2.5 times the energy of an equivalent commercial building, to provide enhanced care for its patients as well the planet”, Corinne Figueredo of the IFC EDGE Green Building Market Transformation Programme, said.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, Evercare Hospital, Rajeev Bhandari, “Hospitals are where people go to get better, and the comfort and ambience of it can fast track healing in a placebo-like effect. We are happy to work with EDGE towards ensuring that our hospital provides quality and advanced medical and healthcare services to Nigerians in an environmentally friendly environment.
“This is because, we believe that medical facilities can provide state-of-the-art treatment while minimizing energy and water use if the right decisions are made at the design stage. Additionally, this will help us cut operational costs.
“Working with EDGE, we have been able to target those areas where technologies can significantly reduce energy bills and help facility managers stay within tight budgets,” Bhandari said.
An innovation of IFC, EDGE helps property developers to build and brand green in a fast, easy, and affordable way. EDGE is supported by a free software that encourages solutions to reduce energy, water and the energy used to make building materials by at least 20 per cent, which is the standard for EDGE certification. The programme is supported by Austria, Canada, Denmark, ESMAP, EU, Finland, GEF, Hungary, Japan and Switzerland.
