LEWISTON — Practice Greenhealth awarded St. Mary’s Health System the 2015 Greenhealth Partner for Change Award on May 19 in Dallas, Texas, at the CleanMed 2016 Conference & Exhibition.

Practice Greenhealth is a health care community dedicated to transforming health care worldwide so that it reduces its environmental footprint, becomes a community anchor for sustainability and a leader in the global movement for environmental health and justice.

The award is one of the organization’s environmental excellence awards given each year to honor outstanding environmental achievements in the health care sector.

The Greenhealth Partner for Change Award recognizes health care facilities that continuously improve and expand upon their mercury elimination, waste reduction, recycling and source reduction programs. At a minimum, facilities applying for this award must be recycling 15 percent of their total waste, have reduced regulated medical waste, are progressing toward mercury elimination and have developed other successful pollution prevention programs in many different areas.

“As a Practice Greenhealth Partner for Change Award winner, St. Mary’s Health System is committed to improving the health of our patients, staff and community as a whole,” said Christopher A. Chekouras, president and CEO of St. Mary’s Health System. “We take pride in our sustainability efforts to lessen our impact on the environment and look forward to working with Practice Greenhealth to continue this work across the country.”