GHC Forum 2026 Back to Basics: Building the Foundations for Climate Action

Join fellow hospitals, clinicians, utility companies, and industry leaders for a day of insight, strategy, and collaboration, focused on addressing barriers and taking action to lower hospital utility costs and greenhouse gas emissions. This event will highlight successful projects, top-performing facilities, emerging policies, and the collaborative frameworks that make sustainable healthcare possible.

This year’s Forum is not just about information and discussion of issues. It is an important next step in the strategic, multi-year pathway to the high energy performance, emissions reductions and utility cost savings of which every hospital is capable. It is a day built around real-world data, exploration of trends and obstacles to progress, networking and sharing and, above all, solutions. The agenda is focused on what is already working and how every hospital can replicate, adapt, and accelerate progress being made.

Agenda

8:00 am | Registration and breakfast

8:45 am | Welcome and keynote – setting the stage for action in challenging times

The Forum begins with an honest look at where the healthcare sector stands today in terms of energy and emissions trends, fiscal pressures, and the growing gap between climate commitments and on-the-ground progress. The keynote sets the stage with the view from the C-Suite, where environmental sustainability fits in the priorities of the board and senior leadership team of a major hospital, and how they balance potentially competing demands on funding and resources.

9:45 am | Session 1: Back to basics – operational efficiency, boiler plant optimization, recommissioning, and the power of internal champions

Capital is constrained and staff are stretched, yet some hospitals consistently outperform their peers. This is not through major capital investments but through disciplined operational management, targeted plant optimization, and systematic recommissioning. This session puts the spotlight on the fundamentals that drive sustained energy savings. It also highlights a powerful and often overlooked reality: some of the most effective allies for energy performance are clinical team leaders and external service providers who, when engaged well, raise the stakes and dramatically improve performance outcomes.

• Boiler plant optimization: principles, implementation, and measured outcomes from the Enbridge Gas project
• Building and deploying your energy support team through structure, mandate, and how to measure effectiveness and impact
• Continuous commissioning as an embedded operational discipline by finding and capturing savings in existing systems
• Following the money of utility DSM programs, infrastructure funding and other sources of funds
• Organizational alignment engaging clinical team leaders and internal influencers: how to bring the right stakeholders into the energy conversation to accelerate results
• Information management in energy and emissions data, targets, reporting, and keeping the basics alive over the long term

10:30 am | Coffee and networking break

11:00 am | Session 2: decarbonization pathways – technology, integration and asset renewal

Decarbonization in healthcare is not a single project, it is a long-term commitment that must be woven into how hospitals plan, invest in and renew their physical infrastructure. This session examines the technology pathways available to hospitals today, the critical importance of integrating the low carbon lens into asset renewal cycles, and how facilities teams can align capital planning with emissions reduction goals even in a constrained funding environment. Real case studies show what planning the transition affordably and strategically actually looks like.

• Achieving efficiency first is the biggest and most cost-effective step towards cutting carbon
• The decarbonization technology landscape for hospitals: building envelopes, heat pumps, electrification, thermal storage, and fuel switching
• Integrating low-carbon solutions into asset renewal and capital planning by sequencing the transition affordably and strategically
• Balancing grid capacity, infrastructure deficiencies, system reliability and operational resilience
• Codes, regulations, and incentives shaping the pace of hospital decarbonization including NYC Local Law 97, Toronto's Building Emissions Performance Standard, and emerging state/provincial frameworks
• Case studies of hospitals that have successfully aligned technology investment with planned asset renewal

12:00 pm | Lunch

1:00 pm | Session 3: Strategic energy management – building the organizational muscle from projects to programs

Sustained energy performance does not happen through isolated projects but requires strategic energy management embedded across the organization. This session focuses on the management systems, structures, culture, and leadership behaviours that separate high-performing hospitals from the rest. This session delivers proven frameworks and real-world examples to guide your path forward.

• What Strategic Energy Management (SEM) looks like in a healthcare context including principles, frameworks, and maturity models
• Organizational alignment from the boardroom to the boiler room by engaging clinicians, executives, and operations in a common agenda
• Building and sustaining an energy management team with the right mandate, data, and decision-making authority
• Scorecards, reporting, and communications that keep leadership engaged and accountable over time
• Case studies of hospitals with mature SEM programs including what they did, how long it took, and the results they have achieved

2:00 pm | Coffee and networking break

2:30 pm | Session 4: New hospital performance – designing and delivering for the future with the launch of the high-performance hospital guide

New hospital construction represents a generational opportunity and a serious responsibility. This session draws on our national research conducted under Natural Resources Canada’s Code Acceleration Fund, looking at how high-performance energy targets are set, pursued, and often lost along the way. GHC will release and discuss the new High-performance hospital guide at this Forum. This guide is a practical resource built from the experience of recently constructed hospitals across Canada and beyond, documenting where the process breaks down, what success required, and what design teams, owners, and operators can do differently now.

• Net zero Pathways project overview: the scope and depth of research behind the Guide and what we set out to learn
• The energy performance of hospitals opened since 2015 with process failures, hard lessons, and the pathways that worked
• Where new hospitals fall short with the most common breakdowns in design, procurement, commissioning, and operations
• What high performance requires: governance, targets, verification, and the right people at the table
• Regional examples and the policy frameworks supporting better new construction outcomes
• How to use the Guide in your own organization with the self-assessment checklist and practical applications for governments, hospitals, project teams, and facility managers

3:30 pm | Forum closing: commitments, accountabilities, and the path forward

• Key themes and discussions from the day
• Next steps for every participant with clear actions, useful resources and the right connections

4:00 pm | Cocktail reception and networking