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Sustain Mount Sinai

“Our mission at Mount Sinai is to care for our patients and our communities—and that responsibility extends to the environment we all share. Reducing our carbon footprint is not just an operational goal; it is an essential part of building a healthier future. Ultimately, we envision hospitals everywhere coming together to cut emissions across the health care sector, so that collectively we can be a powerful force for positive change.”

Muoi Trinh, MD
Medical Director, Sustainability, Mount Sinai Health System
Associate Professor, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, and Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Climate change affects the health of patients and the communities we serve. And just as Mount Sinai is a leader in patient care and in investigating diseases and health conditions affected by climate change, we are equally focused on the role we play as a health system in reducing the institution’s environmental impact.

Health care providers face unique challenges when it comes to environmental stewardship from resource utilization, to managing medical waste, energy consumption, and greenhouse emissions from medical devices and medications, all of which influence our environment. Our goal is to provide the best and safest care for our patients while being efficient, purposeful, sustainable, and resilient. With this dual focus in mind, we have developed a Mount Sinai Sustainability Plan that is a strategic and multipronged effort to create a cleaner and healthier future. The plan involves examining and modifying our infrastructure, operations, and clinical practices to reduce our environmental impact. The plan is focused on:

As we take steps to advance our commitment to environmental responsibility, we remain equally dedicated to ensuring that patient care is our priority.

A Leader in Health Care and Sustainability

Sustainability starts at the top with the unwavering support and commitment of our executive leadership team. Mount Sinai was one of the first health systems in the United States to create a Leadership Sustainability Committee, with members from operational, infrastructure, clinical, and research backgrounds who came together to map out a path toward environmental efficiency. Our mission is to engage staff, leadership, suppliers, and other partners to reduce our organization’s environmental impact and improve the health of the communities we serve. As we collaborate across the Mount Sinai Health System, the Committee’s purpose is to:

  • Create and achieve sustainability goals
  • Serve as a leader in environmental stewardship
  • Engage our suppliers and partners on shared sustainability initiatives
  • Review and approve sustainability initiatives across the Health System
  • Engender a culture of sustainability

Our Governing Structure

The Leadership Sustainability Committee is a multidisciplinary team that meets regularly to shape and ensure progress. It is co-chaired by David L. Reich, MD, Chief Clinical Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System and President of The Mount Sinai Hospital, who oversees the implementation of Mount Sinai’s Sustainability Program, and Kelly Cassano, DO, Executive Vice President and Chief of Ambulatory Care for the Mount Sinai Health System. To help bridge the gap between clinical care, administration, and sustainability practices, Dr. Reich has appointed Muoi A. Trinh, MD, as Mount Sinai’s first Medical Director of Sustainability, who serves on the Sustainability Leadership Committee. Other key leaders who are actively involved to ensure progress on decarbonization and sustainability include:

  • Colin Barrett, Vice President of Infrastructure and Special Projects, who oversees the Energy Management Team and leads the Health Systems’ energy efficiency and decarbonization projects.
  • Frank Cino, Senior Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer, who directs the non-energy and compliance related aspects of the organization’s decarbonization program.
  • Ed Robinson, Senior Vice President, Chief Resource Officer, who is responsible for the health system’s supply chain.
  • Patricia Lamb, Senior Vice President, Chief of Ancillary and Support, who manages support services and operations across the health system.
  • Members of the executive leadership team in departments across the organization such as Supply Chain, Facilities, Environmental Health and Safety, and Population Health.

Mount Sinai employees are also engaged in this systemwide effort as members of the Mount Sinai Green Teams. Green Teams are site specific groups of employees who identify and collaborate on staff-led sustainability projects.

Awards and Recognitions

Mount Sinai Health System has been recognized by Practice Greenhealth, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to environmental sustainability in health care. Mount Sinai has received awards from Practice Greenhealth celebrating the significant progress the Health System has made integrating environmentally responsible practices across its hospitals and facilities.

Mount Sinai Health System competes against hundreds of hospitals nationwide in the Environmental Excellence Awards each year. Recent accolades include:

  • 2025 System for Change Award, recognizing health care institutions that have made significant environmental progress and embedded sustainability into their culture and operations. Mount Sinai Health System is one of only 15 health systems nationwide to receive this honor. 
  • 2025 Emerald Award, celebrating the top hospitals with advanced sustainability programs and exemplary performance. The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Brooklyn are among the hospitals honored for 2025. 
  • 2024 and 2025 Partner for Change Award, acknowledging superior performance in environmental sustainability. Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai Queens, and New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai are among the campuses with this distinction. In 2024, Mount Sinai Queens, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and Mount Sinai Brooklyn received the Partner for Change Award for making substantive progress on eliminating mercury.
  • 2024 Greening the OR Recognition Award, celebrated The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai for making substantial progress to reduce the environmental impact from the operating room.

Climate Goals and Public Commitments

Making multiple climate action pledges is more than a symbolic gesture; it is a statement of our strategic alignment with the mission to be environmentally responsible. Mount Sinai Health System has made pledges at local, state, and national level to measure, evaluate, and identify opportunities for meaningful carbon reduction. These commitments give us clear goals, timelines, and frameworks to develop strategies and map our progress.  They create a space and structure for shared collaborative problem solving, innovation, and shared vision that is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental. More importantly, these pledges reaffirm our mission, which is protecting patient health, community health, and planetary health.

  • New York City Carbon Challenge—Mount Sinai has a long history and commitment to sustainability, dating back to 2009 when we first signed on to the New York City Carbon Challenge in partnership with the New York Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. This was a collaborative effort between public and private sectors to reduce institutional emissions by 30 percent by 2040.  In 2017, Mount Sinai expanded our carbon reduction goal to 40 percent by the same target year.
  • NYSIF Climate Action Pledge—Mount Sinai is proud to be one of the earliest signatories of the New York State Insurance Fund (NYSIF) Climate Action Program. In 2024, Mount Sinai pledged to reduce our emissions by 50% by 2030, develop a resiliency plan to shield against climate-related disruptions, and develop a climate action plan describing how they will meet these ambitious goals.
  • Cool Food Pledge—In 2022, Mount Sinai Health System was recognized by the United Nations Climate Change Conference for its ongoing decarbonization efforts. We signed on the Cool Food Pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food purchases by 25 percent by 2030. This commitment extends our previous efforts to decarbonize to areas beyond just energy and facilities.