decarb:HEALTHCARE Guidebook (decarbhealthcare.com)
Overview
Hospitals are among the most energy-intensive buildings there are. They run 24/7 and still rely heavily on natural gas for space heating, reheat, domestic hot water, steam, sterilization, and humidification. Healthcare leaders knew they needed to decarbonize, but practical, hospital-specific guidance was scattered, quickly outdated, or locked in static reports.
With funding from the California Energy Commission, Mazzetti set out to change that. Instead of writing another PDF, we built decarbhealthcare.com: a free, interactive, “living” guidebook that helps owners, operators, designers, engineers, architects, and regulators cut natural gas use, reduce emissions and operating costs, and chart a practical path to decarbonized hospitals. And because it’s a living resource, it keeps growing as new technologies, case studies, and lessons emerge.
Built With the Community
We developed the guidebook in the open. In 2021 Mazzetti launched the decarb:HEALTHCARE community with a series of nine virtual workshops. Hospital engineers, designers, manufacturers, regulators, and healthcare organizations from around the world joined us, with up to 105 participants per session. Each workshop paired expert presentations with breakout discussions on one piece of the problem:
- Load reduction
- Boilers and domestic hot water
- Steam and humidification
- The grid and energy supply
- Codes and regulations
- Financing
- Real-world decarbonization journeys
Insights from these sessions, along with guidance from a Technical Advisory Committee that included Kaiser Permanente, shaped the technologies and strategies that became the guidebook’s chapters.
Inside the Platform
Mazzetti led the research and content, and software partner Swenson He designed and built the site. The result goes well beyond an online document:
- The Guidebook: Chapters on benchmarking, codes and standards, state and local regulations, decarbonization technologies, pilot projects, and finance strategies, with case studies drawn from Mazzetti projects, partners, and industry sources.
- Explore: Search and filter content by keyword, tag, and type, including technology briefs, executive summaries, case studies, workshops, and motivational content.
- Decarb Strategy Tool: Generates a custom decarbonization narrative based on a facility’s building type, heating system, and climate zone.
- Motivation: Resources on leading organizational change, plus links to the Health Sector Climate Pledge and the IFHE Carbon Challenge.
- My Dashboard: Registered users can save pages and get recommended articles and curated reading lists.
- Community discussions: Comments, likes, notifications, and user-submitted topics, moderated by Mazzetti, so practitioners can share research and lessons learned.
Impact
The public launch in June 2023 drew more than 70 attendees, with speakers from UCLA, the National Academy of Medicine, Practice Greenhealth, and Mazzetti. Within two months the platform had more than 150 registered users from more than 15 healthcare organizations across the U.S. Mazzetti has since shared the guidebook with audiences at ACEEE’s Hot Air Forum, CleanMed, the Healthcare Design Conference, ASHE chapter meetings, and our own Bending the Climate Curve series.
Mazzetti’s Role
Mazzetti served as lead researcher, content developer, community convener, and long-term steward of the platform.
