How to green your practice

Drs Sharon Muir and Michelle Crockett have built a practice that is not only making a difference to the health and wellbeing of their local community, it’s making a difference to the environment too.

Named the RACGP’s 2014 General Practice of the Year, the Riverstone Family Medical Practice is recognised for the quality care it provides to patients. But its commitment to doing right by their patients extends far beyond the walls of the consultation rooms.

Dr Muir says creating a practice that was environmentally-friendly was top of mind for both herself and Dr Crockett.

“We were fortunate in our current practice to be able to start from scratch with a plot of land in the midst of the Riverstone business district upon which we could build our dream structure. Within financial and planning constraints we were still able to work with our architect to come up with a design that optimised our goal for streamlining the provision of care, giving our patients a comfortable experience, and taking the environment into account.”

They started construction in 2013 and completed the project 18 months later. The building features many design elements that reduce the practice’s environmental impact and takes the health of patients and staff into consideration. These features include:

• Site positioning and window location to allow natural light into every corner of the practice to reduce the need for electric lighting during the day. Every room can see the sky (other than the toilets)
• Staff lunch room at the north-east corner with trifold doors to open up for fresh air and views to the park. Zip system to reduce waste water, encourage water-drinking, and speed up prep times for a break.
• Double glazing of all windows and glass doors with special e-coating on the few windows that face south-east to meet the morning sun in the summer.
• Shade awning on the north-facing windows to allow winter sun in and block summer sun.
• Windows that tilt/turn in order to be able to use natural ventilation as often as possible, locked in the tilt phase in all public areas for safety.
• An internal circulation corridor with five-metre high walls and clerestory windows to bring light into the centre of the practice and windows that open.
• Air-conditioning that is zoned in the waiting areas, absent in the sealed internal corridor, and individual reverse-cycled in every smaller room so that it can remain off when the room is not used and can be set to match the needs of the occupant at the time if needed.
• Dense insulation with R values* well above standard, a fully insulated cantilevered first floor providing shade for staff and accessible carparking.
• Two deciduous trees, Claret Ash, were planted, which will eventually provide good shade to the rest of the carpark in summer.
• Solar panels have been installed on the roof, with a battery that stores energy overnight to provide about an hour of backup for the fridges and computers if needed. On average the solar energy provides about 55% of our electricity needs in winter and about 80% in the milder months of autumn and spring.
• Rubbish is recycled – ensuring that all patient-related information goes into the secure shredding bin but everything else that can be re-used is either turned into scrap note paper or put into a “co-mingled” recycling bin.
• Stormwater from the roof is stored in a detention tank and used to flush the toilets. Overflow in the carpark drains into a raingarden which has a special soil mix to filter the water before it reaches the deeper soil or flows into the stormwater drain.
• All LED lighting with just T7 fluorescent in the car park and timed light adjustments outside for security purposes.
• Easy-clean surfaces to minimise the need for electrical equipment in cleaning and keep everything fresh and pleasant.

The environmental design elements added $100,000 to the building costs, but they’re starting to see the cost savings now – particularly from the solar panels, which Dr Muir estimates is saving the practice approximately $1000 per quarter.

Dr Muir acknowledges they had the benefit of starting with a blank slate and that for doctors who are leasing their offices, some of these environmental improvements can’t be made.

However, she suggests there are ways of making every practice a little more environmentally-friendly – through recycling, electricity use, or simulating double glazing on windows.

“It just requires a will to do it.”

*R value measures resistance to heat flow