The hospital has made caring for the environment a priority, because the long-term benefits and savings help both people and the surroundings we live in. Patients are often worried and frightened when they come to a hospital. By beautifying the hospital with lots of plants and trees, we wish to create a more serene and restful environment for patients. Similarly, planting hydroponics on the rooftops provides food for the hospital, but also absorbs the heat from the roof, cooling the wards facing it.

At the hospital, we also faced huge utility bills. The hospital started to look into ways of reducing energy and water consumption to eliminate wastage. Environmentally friendly practices all around the hospital were employed, such as recycling and management systems for energy and water. The savings derived from all these efforts were channelled towards patient care.

Environmental Awards

The hospital has won various awards for its environmental efforts. Changi General Hospital received its ISO 14001 certification on 13 November 1998, the first hospital in Singapore to be certified. We were conferred the Inaugural Singapore Environmental Achievement Award by the Singapore Environment Council on 3 June 1999. The hospital participated in this programme to benchmark ourselves against other environmentally organisations. Winning this award affirmed that we were on the right track in our pursuit for green excellence, and we still continue to improve our environmental efforts.

In 2001, CGH also participated in the Green Productivity Demonstration Programme sponsored jointly by the Asian Productivity Organisation and the Productivity Standards Board (PSB). We also received first prize in the New & Existing Building category for the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Energy Efficiency Awards as well as the 2002 ASEAN Energy Efficiency Building Best Practices Competition. The National Environmental Agency also presented Changi General Hospital with the Green Leaf Award on 5 November 2002. This annual award recognises individuals, youths, and organisations that have made outstanding contributions to the protection of our local environment.

How It All Began

The hospital's first attempt at gardening was in 1962. A nurse, Madam Tan Joo Lan, planted Japanese bamboo plants in Toa Payoh Hospital, CGH's predecessor, because the garden was rather bare. Her pioneering efforts to beautify the hospital grounds with greenery is still fondly remembered today. The bamboo plant has since been transferred to our new hospital grounds at Changi General Hospital.

The hospital started on the environment journey in the early 1990s in the old Toa Payoh Hospital. The hospital building was old and tired looking, and "lallang" was growing everywhere. A group of determined hospital staff decided to do something about this dismal situation, wanting to create a peaceful environment for our patients. We had consulted landscaping contractors, but what they had quoted was well beyond the budget. Undeterred, the staff decided to do the gardening themselves. Since then, the gardening club consisting of staff members has been enthusiastically creating a beautiful garden within the hospital grounds.

When the hospital moved to the new facilities in Changi General Hospital in 1997, we continued with the greening culture. Here, we started improving the look of the hospital by planting lots of saplings and trees. However the topsoil at the new hospital was very poor and the plants refused to grow. The hospital sought advice from friends, and with help from the Singapore Zoological Gardens, we learnt the benefits of creating and using compost.

CGH faced the challenge of huge utility bills at the new hospital, so a group of staff came together and deeply reflected on how we could reduce energy and water consumption. The Chairman of the committee, Mr Faisal Bushfield said, "When we were first involved in environmental management, we knew little about this topic. So my colleagues and I started to read up in the weekends, to come up with innovative ways of making the hospital an environmentally friendly place." As a result of these initiatives,
Changi General Hospital received its ISO 14001 certification on 13 November 1998. Evidently, our environmental management systems were recognised, and indicate CGH's acceptance of our responsibility to nature.

Green Aspirations

Changi General Hospital has set its sight in transforming the hospital ground to an environment that is conducive for healing and a delight for the senses - an enchanting and relaxing haven, filled with tranquillity and comfort for all patients.

In the near future, CGH aims to replicate the atmosphere at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Patients and visitors will be able to enjoy the lush greenery and be greeted by a gentle breeze, three layers of green canopy, chirping birds, butterflies and fragrant scents of nature from the variety of flowers and trees. It will be a sensation of sight, scent and sound. In short, we would like to become the other "Shangri-La".

Our greening culture that started in the early 1990s at Toa Payoh Hospital has flourished and spread throughout the Hospital with the Green Fingers Club leading the way. Throughout 1998, projects such as the rooftop hydroponics garden and the compost heap were started, setting a grassroot momentum among staff to care for the environment within the hospital. During that year, CGH staff planted more than 1,300 plants and trees during our monthly gardening sessions.

In an innovative effort to cool the wards facing the roof of the podium, the hospital launched a hydroponics project in the same year. The hydroponic plants planted on the rooftop help to absorb heat, making naturally ventilated wards cooler. This project which took off with the assistance of Dr Gregory Chow from the Department of Biotechnology, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, has certainly bore fruits. Among other fruits and vegetables, we harvested more than 190kg of cherry tomatoes that year.

In creating the much-desired lush greenery at the hospital, we decided to give nature a helping hand by improving the soil quality through natural fertilizers. Learning from the Singapore Zoological Gardens, we embarked on our compost heap project, creating natural fertilizers by recycling plant and grass cuttings and kitchen vegetable waste. Started in August 1998, the use of compost has helped transform our gardens into beautiful kaleidoscopes of colour.

Environmental Initiatives

In line with our determination to care for the environment, a committee within CGH set out to promote energy and water conservation. Targets were set to reduce energy and water consumption in the Hospital for the months till June 1999. Already, the Hospital managed to save average consumption of electricity by 12 percent and water by 25 percent. This equivocates to savings of $800,000 in a year that was channelled towards improving patient care.

The hospital's environmental initiatives included the effective use of sun shading devices and naturally ventilated skylights to optimise indoor lighting and ventilation. Adjustments were also made to the air-conditioning system to lower energy consumption without compromising on comfort. The thermostats in the wards are clearly marked to help nurses set and maintain the room temperature between 23 and 24°C. To reduce leakage of cooled air, manual doors were replaced with automatic ones in areas separating the air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned areas. Other energy saving features include motion sensor lights, taps and energy saving light bulbs.

Hospital staff also saved and recycled resources wherever and whenever possible. Toners in computer printers and facsimile machines throughout the hospital were switched to recyclable types. All personnel from every level in the hospital reinforced recycling. Everyone was encouraged to play their role in the recycling efforts, and we continue to do so, such as by using both sides of paper when possible. Our support for recycling and caring for the environment extends further to our community. More than 500 of our staff participated in the National Clean & Green Week and contributed nearly half of the newspapers collected during the campaign.

Such environmentally friendly programmes are possible because the hospital has put in place a management system that monitors and continuously improves on its environmentally friendly performance. Environmental policies, monitoring systems, tests and maintenance measures have been implemented throughout the Hospital. In our efforts to do well in conserving our environment and preventing waste, we decided to benchmark ourselves against the world environment standard. We were pleased to see our efforts were rewarded on 13 November 1998, when we became the first hospital in Singapore to be certified ISO 14001.

Our Partners

The achievements in our environment efforts would not have been possible without the support, advice and assistance from the following organisations: