The development of Green Hospital Rating System: The case of Turkey

Healthcare facilities have great impacts on the environment due to their energy, water and material consumption, hazardous waste and carbon emissions. One of the types of green building models developed to solve environmental problems is green hospital certificates. In the research literature, problems have been seen in the implementation of international green building certification system for buildings in Turkey. This research was carried out in order to improve the provision of hospital green transformation of existing hospitals as well as development of green hospital rating system for the new hospitals to be built as green hospitals. The methodologies used in studies aiming to develop national green building rating systems based on international green building certification systems were used. Since quantitative and qualitative studies are carried out together in the research, the mixed metodology approach was used. Among the selected methods there are literature review, case study, field review, expert opinion, survey research and data analysis. Comparative analysis of BREEAM, LEED, WELL, ÇEDBİK, DGNB, IGBC, SBTool, EDGE green hospital and green building certification systems that are widely practiced in the world and in Turkey, were performed. In the study, health workers in Turkey, hospital administrators, green hospital practices survey 32 participants consisting of four expert groups including master thesis or article by researchers and green hospital projects in specific areas of green building experts were applied questionnaire. The main results of the study are the Green Hospital Rating system, which consists of 10 evaluation titles and 49 sub-criteria. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach, binary comparisons of the assessment titles were made and their significance levels were calculated. By taking the geometric mean of the values given by the experts to the sub-criteria, the weight percentage in the evaluation title for the sub-criteria was calculated. The final significance level of the sub-criteria was calculated by multiplying the title importance by the weight percentage of the sub-criteria in the title. According to the results of the research, the titles "Energy", "Water", "Indoor Environmental Quality and Welfare", "Waste and Pollution" were determined as the most important topics. It has been observed that there are significant differences among expert groups in the ranking of the assessment topics and the importance level of the sub criteria. In the context of Turkey proposals for the creation of green hospital rating system were made.