Dialysis provider DaVita Inc. plans to cut its energy consumption 15 percent per treatment by 2015 as part of a larger environmental initiative.

The company announced five environmental goals, which were picked by 3,000 employees, to be achieved in the next three years from a 2011 baseline. DaVita has committed to reducing business office paper consumption 20 percent and operating paperless clinics; decreasing water consumption by 10 percent; increasing environmentally preferable procurement by 15 percent and improving employee awareness of sustainability initiatives by implementing one new program per year.

DaVita, which operates more than 1,800 outpatient dialysis centers in the  US, formalized a broad environmental commitment in 2010. Since then, the company has taken a number of steps to recycle waste and reduce energy. DaVita opened the first LEED-certified dialysis center in the US that same year. The company is now seeking LEED Gold certification for its new corporate headquarters in Denver.

In 2011, DaVita offset 100 percent of the energy used all of its corporate business offices by buying green power credits that generate a net zero increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The company now saves more than 8 million pounds of medical waste annually and 95 percent of waste at its corporate headquarters is diverted through composting and recycling programs.

The company has installed a solar thermal system at its Scottsburg, Ind. location and its data center in Tacoma, Wash., was retrofitted to increase efficiency in heating and cooling loads while consolidating servers to reduce energy use.

Last year, DaVita and subsidiary of recycling and refuse collection company Waste Management announced a pilot project to recycle 350,000 pounds of waste from kidney dialysis. WM Healthcare Solutions runs the project with medical products firm Becton, Dickinson and Company. More than 100 DaVita clinics in southern California participated in the project.

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