Environmental Stewardship Leadership

Our leadership and caregivers work closely to plan and act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help build more resilient communities. Together, with our more than 120,000 caregivers across seven states, we can transform our practices, purchases and behaviors to ensure we are caring for our common home.

Environmental stewardship reports directly to leadership at the most senior level of the organization. Each leader holds accountability and ownership in contributing to our bold goal.

Caregiver Green Teams

Our environmental stewardship progress would not be possible without the engagement of caregivers across the system. All our hospitals are represented by a Green Team or environmentally focused affinity group. Green Teams in Providence focus on education and engagement of caregivers related to our environmental stewardship goals and progress. They can help drive change in hospital operations through their familiarity with the sites – their input is invaluable for what we call “the secret sauce” - caregiver engagement.

Environmental Stewardship Core Team

• Ali Santore, Providence executive vice president, chief administrative officer
• Beth Schenk, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, chief environmental stewardship officer
• Brian Chesebro, M.D., medical director, environmental stewardship
• Cassie Tinari, executive director, social responsibility
• Oriana Turley, RN, program manager, environmental stewardship
• Sister Sara Tarango, environmental stewardship liaison to Southern California; Sister of St. Joseph of Orange
• David Thomsen, director, infrastructure and environmental stewardship
• Geoff Glass, senior program manager, energy and environmental stewardship
• Darcy Moxon, sustainability program manager, Alaska
• Frank Papp, senior sustainability program manager, Puget Sound
• Mike Geller, senior sustainability program manager, Oregon
• Sarah Johnson, RN, sustainability program manager, Montana
• Kristy Pelletier, RN, sustainability program coordinator, Montana

Key Partners

• Jennie Kim, executive director, contract and supplier management
• Mike Denney, senior vice president, chief real estate officer
• Ivette de Rubens, senior vice president, strategy, informatics, and clinical experience
• Anna Franklin, executive director, health equity and environmental stewardship of central division
• Emily Ford, Government Relations Director, Environmental Stewardship Liaison
• Christina Vanzuela, program manager, supply chain
• Providence Global Center, WE ACT Scorecard Team

National and Global Leadership

• Partner of the American Society for Health Care Engineering and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers to work to advance codes and standards for environmental sustainability in health care. This includes partnering on a decarbonization study of Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, Washington, to describe how to convert a fossil fuel-heating plant to electric sources.
• Member of the Health Care Climate Council through Healthcare Without Harm
• Early signatory to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge
• Member of the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Decarbonization of the U.S. Health Sector
• Participant and speaker at the United Nations Council of Parties 27 and 28
• Early commitment to The Joint Commission Sustainable Healthcare Certification Program for all 51 hospitals in the Providence network
• Commitment to America Is All In
• Commitment to Race to Zero

What Our Caregivers Are Saying

"As a mechanical engineer, I love to understand how we can improve upon those systems without impacting, or even improving, patient care. Many of our hospitals were built decades ago and it will take significant effort to improve their efficiency but for each location we are establishing energy use targets." - David Thomsen, director, infrastructure and environmental stewardship

“As the medical director of environmental stewardship, I recognize the crossroads upon which we sit of taking responsibility for our footprint and the downstream impacts of public health. Environmental stewardship and health are intractably linked to our approach in health care and medicine. Our vision is health for a better world, and in the inverse, we need a better world for health.” - Brian Chesebro, M.D., chief medical officer, environmental stewardship, Oregon

“Our goal is to simplify, modernize and innovate our technological ecosystem. How we drive action across the board is a virtuous cycle that reduces our carbon footprint.” - Ivette de Rubens, group vice president, information systems strategy

Have questions?

Please send us an email at [email protected].