At a time when some businesses are groaning over rising energy cost and use, Evercare Hospital in Lekki, Lagos is telling a different story,having reduced its energy use by 39 percent following its building’s Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) certification.
By this certification, Evercare, a high end healthcare provider, has made history as the first hospital in Nigeria to receive Final EDGE Certification as a resource-efficient and environmentally friendly designed healthcare building project.
Evercare Hospital is a modern 165-bed purpose-built multi-specialty. It is a tertiary state-of-the-art private hospital that is part of the Evercare Group of hospitals providing integrated healthcare delivery services in emerging markets across Africa and South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kenya.
The hospital offers care across a range of specialty medical and surgical services and is delivering high quality and accessible healthcare to communities in Lagos.
Explaining why the hospital was EDGE-certified, Sintali-SGS, an environmental certification body and global certification partner for International Finance Corporation’s (IFC’s) EDGE green building programme, said the hospital’s resource-efficient design achieved 38.81 percent reduction in energy usage, 20.50 percent in water consumption and 42.07 percent in materials’ embodied energy compared to a local benchmark.
“We are excited that Evercare Hospital has achieved Final EDGE Certification. This milestone is testimonial to the hospital’s vision for leading sustainable change in Nigeria’s health care industry,” said Corinne Figueredo of IFC EDGE Green Building Market Transformation Programme.
Figueredo, who spoke at the certificate presentation event at Evercare Hospital in Lekki, recently added, “it 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 as the planet.”
Rajeev Bhandari, CEO of Evercare Hospital, noted that hospitals were places people go to get better, adding that their comfort and ambience could 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 a friendly environment.
Read also: Strengthening Health Financing in Africa Towards Universal Health Coverage
“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 technology can significantly reduce energy bills and help facility managers stay within tight budgets”.
An innovation of IFC, EDGE helps property developers to build and brand green in a fast, easy, and affordable way. EDGE is supported by free software that encourages solutions to reduce water and energy used to make building materials by, at least ,20 percent which is the standard for EDGE certification.
The programme has been generously supported by the partners that include Austria,Canada, Denmark, ESMAP, EU, Finland, GEF, Hungary, Japan, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
In Nigeria, EDGE has certified projects in Lagos, Abuja, Maiduguri and Benin City. Over the past four years, EDGE has supported several forward-looking pioneers of green buildings to lead a profitable transformation of the country’s real estate sector.
Some Nigerian companies have adopted EDGE and these include Alpha Mead Development Company, Echostone, African Capital Alliance, Greenage, Modern Shelter, MISA, American University, Karmod Nigeria, Sachela Limited, Student Accommod8 and Stanbic IBTC.
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
