Getting Started

If you are a nurse who is interested in exploring what possibilities are available to you to start a sustainability initiative at your place of work, we highly recommend taking the following 5 steps!

Step 1: Find out if your hospital has a sustainability department, project, or someone that is working on sustainability

• • If something exists, learn about what they’re doing and see if it is something you believe in and want to get involved with
  • While you are conducting this step, it is a good idea to put feelers out to see who else is interested in doing this work with you. You will be surprised by the number of people who are passionate about the environment but are also at a loss as to where to begin.

Step 2: Either by yourself, with the sustainability team, or with the identified group of people also passionate about the environment, go through this hospital assessment tool to identify areas where a sustainability initiative could be implemented.This tool can also be scaled down to a department or unit. 

Step 3: Review the Sustainability Toolkit for resources to support starting your initiative, especially the Case Studies to see if there is a nurse who has already successfully created an initiative that you’d like to start and see what they recommend you to do to get started 

Step 4: Review AHNE’s Getting Started: A Guide for Nurses for additional resources to support you and your team on your sustainability journey!

Step 5: Once you have an idea, develop a pitch, identify your key stakeholders to engage with, and begin outreach to identified stakeholders to get your project started!