Fume hoods and -80 freezers can consume as much as 3.5 and 1 homes' worth of energy, respectively.
June 25, 2024
To celebrate Earth Month, the Office of Energy and Sustainability organized two annual events, the One Healthcare Ecochallenge and the Stop and Swap.
We participated in the second annual One Healthcare Ecochallenge, a free, virtual, and friendly month-long competition between healthcare organizations that aims to promote healthy, sustainable habits and community health. Forty-four Weill Cornell Medicine employees and students participated, collecting 3974 points. Based on total points, we finished 23rd out of 116 teams and 40th based on average points per member (90).
We finished ahead of our neighbors at Memorial Sloan Kettering, The Rockefeller University, and Mount Sinai Health System. Well done, WCM!
Congratulations to the One Healthcare Ecochallenge top scorers for WCM: Deirdre Kelleher and Megan Lesnicki, who won gift cards from EarthHero.
Some of the team's achievements based on the actions taken during the challenge are listed below:
- Consumed 57 meatless or vegan meals
- Saved 296 gallons of water
- 69 miles not traveled by car
- 50 trees planted
- 44 items donated
- 125 minutes spent being mindful and/or meditating
- 15 random acts of kindness were made
- 795 minutes not spent in front of a screen
- 113 minutes spent learning about sustainability
- 52,850 more steps taken, and 464 minutes were spent exercising
The second annual Stop & Swap, held on April 25, aimed to reduce waste by providing clothes and books a second life. WCM staff and students dropped off clothes and books they no longer needed and browsed for free items others donated.
During the event, 75 bags of clothing (539 pounds) and 185 books (323 pounds) were collected. This is a 40% increase over last year! After the event, the remaining clothes—142 pounds—were donated to the Salvation Army. We donated 37 remaining books to The Book Cellar, a used bookstore run by volunteers of the Webster Branch of the New York Public Library. All proceeds from The Book Cellar support the New York Public Library (NYPL).
Around 60 people donated clothes and books, and 100 came to browse what was donated.
A special thank you goes out to the volunteers who donated their time to make the event a success, especially the WCM Environmental Health Collective—students who work to support environmental health education, activism, and conversation at WCM—who helped run the event.