LEWISTON — St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center has been honored with a 2012 Partner for Change, with Distinction Award from Practice Greenhealth, the national membership organization for health care facilities committed to environmentally responsible operations.

The Partner for Change, with Distinction Award is a very competitive award that recognizes health care facilities that have achieved improvements in their mercury elimination, waste reduction and source reduction programs — above and beyond the Partner for Change basic criteria. That includes at least 20 percent recycling, 10 percent or less regulated medical waste, a more extensive sustainability program, and more programs covering a wider range of areas (such as food, energy, water, chemical minimization and more). Facilities must also show leadership in the local community and/or in the health care sector.

St. Mary’s earned recognition due to its efforts to reduce its electricity, oil, gas, and water consumption, as well as promote food sustainability in the community.

St. Mary’s replaced its air-cooled chiller with two high efficiency centrifugal chillers, contributing to an annual reduction in electricity costs of more than $625,000, even while expanding its facility by approximately 100,000 square feet.

As a result of these reductions St. Mary’s was the first hospital in Maine to earn the prestigious national Energy Star Award. Other facility upgrades led to a 9.5 million gallon annual reduction in water consumption. Duel fuel boilers give St. Mary’s the ability to track fuel markets and choose between No. 2 fuel or cleaner burning natural gas.

Through the work of St. Mary’s Nutrition Center, with the help of community partners, it has taken a lead role in a sustainability and food access study to learn how to best address the needs of the Lewiston-Auburn area. Additionally, Lots to Gardens, a youth and community driven program within the Nutrition Center, uses sustainable urban agriculture to create access to fresh food and to nurture healthy youth and a healthy community.

The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented in Denver at CleanMed, a national environmental conference for leaders in health care sustainability.