Two Southwestern hospitals are taking the lead in efforts to help create sustainable communities, according to an article on the Health Facilities Management website.

The Christus Spohn Hospital, Corpus Christi, Texas, and the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City are piloting a new U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) standard.

Both projects have chosen a standard called RELi to guide their sustainability efforts. 

RELi is a consensus standard that was published in 2014 by the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability and its Capital Markets Partnership coalition. It provides an integrative process to create resilient facilities and communities. Last fall, it was adopted by Green Business Certification Inc. and the U.S. Green Building Council. The standard’s original creators and USGBC are refining the standard and scaling it to become an international rating system, much like USGBC’s LEED rating system, the article said. 

Read the article.