Ridgewood NJ, The Valley Hospital announced today that it has received the Vizient Excellence Award for Sustainability. The award honors The Valley Hospital’s strong commitment to good governance, community engagement and environmental stewardship in 2015. Vizient, Inc., the largest member-owned health care company in the country, presented the award on Thursday, April 14 during the 2016 Vizient Connections Summit held in Las Vegas.
The hospital received this award in recognition of its apiaries (bee hives), which are helping to combat the nearly 40 percent decrease in the New Jersey bee population annually. With eight hives in total, the bees help to pollinate a 2-mile radius around the hospital and the hospital’s offsite ambulatory surgery center, increasing the yield of flowers, fruits and vegetables over a 17,400 acre area.
Beekeeping is just one example of Valley’s efforts to “go green” and support locally produced food. In 2010 Valley signed the Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge, which calls for hospitals to use more locally grown food, work with vendors to obtain products free of pesticides and hormones, purchase more organic foods, educate the community about nutritious and ‘’socially just” foods, minimize or reuse food waste, use ecologically protective food packaging and support humane agriculture systems. Initiatives to date conducted in support of the pledge include buying local produce from Catalpa Ridge Farm, which is a community supported agriculture program in Sussex County, the hospital’s commitment to buying cage-free eggs, promoting “Meatless Monday” and a year-long partnership with the community supported agriculture program offered by Hesperides Organica, a farm in Warwick, N.Y.
“We have always been big supporters of locally produced food and what could be more local that producing your own honey?” said Dawn Cascio, Director of Valley Dining. “We also like the idea of supporting the declining honey bee population while enhancing our community’s gardens, foliage, and trees.”
Since the addition of the initial two hives that marked project’s inception in 2013, the annual honey harvest has increased from 30 pounds to over 100 pounds. The honey is utilized in menus for the hospital’s patients, visitors and staff. The beeswax has been used as an ingredient in the hospital’s all-natural, house-made lip balm, body butter, hand lotion, foot balm and vapor rub. These products, along with jarred raw honey, are available for sale at the hospital’s retail locations.
“Across the country, Vizient members are leading the development of sustainability programs that make the delivery of care more environmentally conscious and resource considerate,” said Scott Downing, executive vice president, Collaboration and Performance Improvement Networks. “We are proud to recognize The Valley Hospital’s commitment in this area and their program’s achievement.
