IHHC Gold Supporter Bunzl’s inaugural Excellence in Sustainability Award has been won by Regis Aged Care Camberwell, in recognition of its commitment to reducing landfill waste, increasing onsite recycling and green building design as exemplified at its new Camberwell site.

To find out more about Regis’ win of this worthy award, we spoke to both Bunzl Australia/New Zealand GM Healthcare John Christiansen and Regis Aged Care CEO Linda Mellors.

The Excellence in Sustainability Award is one of Bunzl Australia’s Healthcare Awards, which were instituted as a show of support to aged care providers and their staff.

“The aged care sector has faced significant challenges in recent times – from workforce shortages to sustainability issues, but providers still strive to maintain high standards of service,” John Christiansen points out. “We were in awe of everyone working in the industry over recent trying times – so as we stabilised and came out into more regular times, we decided we wanted to do something that would recognise providers and their staff.

“It was about Bunzl as a longtime supplier to the sector trying to give back a little and show our support to those people who’ve done an outstanding job through some difficult years. Winning an award can provide a big lift in staff morale because it shows that your efforts are recognised and valued.”

The two main award categories were Excellence in Registered Nursing within Aged Care and Excellence in Sustainability. The latter is strongly aligned with Bunzl’s own sustainability focus, as John explains: “Bunzl is a major supplier of products designed to help reduce landfill and increase recycling. We sit agnostically in the supply chain as we’re not tied to a single manufacturer – and in the past few years there’s been big changes in regulation of single use plastics, reducing carbon footprints and swapping out products in favour of more environmentally sustainable choices. We were interested in what people were doing in this space, particularly how proactive they’ve been in moving towards a more sustainable future.”

The Award acknowledges the efforts of businesses and individuals who have contributed to improving environmental sustainability in an aged care environment. Criteria include reduction in landfill waste and increase in recycled waste, purchase of sustainable products, and communication to staff, aged care residents and families about their sustainability initiatives.

The judging panel consisted of four Bunzl healthcare experts and the company’s head of sustainability. Each judged the entries independently, using a rigorous scoring system to ensure impartiality.

“It was important to us that the judging was conducted with due discipline and rigour so the results would be above board,” John says. “The judges looked at what businesses were doing to facilitate sustainability and how this flowed through to changing their teams behaviours and make an impact at ground level. The Regis Aged Care Camberwell entry was a real standout.”

Regis Aged Care was established some 30 years ago, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2014 and today has 69 residential aged care homes plus some homecare and retirement living. Given our aging population, Australia is in need of more residential aged care, but many suppliers to the sector aren’t building new facilities. Regis, however, is committed to expansion – it’s currently building a new home in Toowong, Queensland, has sites under development in Belrose and Carlingford in Sydney, recent land acquisitions in Coburg and Essendon in Melbourne, and continues to actively look for land for future developments.

Its Camberwell site opened in November last year and is home to 112 residents – most rooms are singles with ensuites, including some larger suites. “There was a major focus on sustainability during the build,” says Regis Aged Care CEO Linda Mellors, “which ties into our broader sustainability focus. As we are listed on the ASX we need to report routinely on our ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) framework, and having highly ethical practices is pivotal to everything we do.

“We have about 12,000 employees caring for more than seven and a half thousand residents at any given time – so we’re a big outfit, and our residents as well as our employees really care about what we’re doing from a sustainability perspective.”

Linda says Bunzl is a longtime supplier to Regis Aged Care – “they were fabulous during Covid, really supportive during all the supply issues. When they told us about the Award, we decided to enter because our Camberwell home has some lovely sustainability aspects to it.”

Sustainable building design at Regis is embedded throughout the lifecycle of a building. Regis engaged environmental engineers and ESD consultants during the building design process to ensure environmental impacts were considered along with resident comfort. This included a focus on efficient energy consumption, rooftop solar panels, material circularity, indoor air quality, waste segregation and recycling.

“In terms of building materials selection, we wanted to minimise if not eliminate volatile organic compounds, formaldehydes and silica-based surfaces,” Linda says. “At the time of commissioning a lot of the risks associated with silica were becoming widely known, so we went for low silica stone and substitutes. We also used locally sourced materials wherever we could for fixtures and finishings to help reduce our carbon footprint around international delivery and shipping.

“One of the major considerations in aged care builds is to try to manage bouncing sounds – you want materials that will absorb sound, which is why we went for timber and fabrics rather than synthetics, so as to provide for a quieter environment for residents and staff.”

Another focus was on ensuring effective and sustainably produced climate control. “We were able to find an HVAC system which has fantastic heat recovery built into it – much more efficient than usual – which we forecast will reduce our energy usage on climate control by 25 per cent,” Linda says.

“In aged care you often have multiple split systems as well as hydronic radiators, but we wanted to ensure we would have centralised control of heating and cooling, with remote temperature monitoring so our residents wouldn’t need to turn the heat up and down.”

Another important consideration was reducing sunlight hitting glass surfaces at various times of the day while still allowing plenty of natural light into the building. This was achieved with louver systems which can dynamically control shading on the eastern and western sides of the building, enabling the reduction of excessive sunlight and heat during summer. “We’ve used a lot of window tinting and frosting,” Linda explains, “and we undertook sunlight modelling analysis to ensure it’s been put in place in all the right areas around the building.”

Sustainability initiatives implemented at Camberwell are part of Regis’ wider sustainable design guidelines, focused on creating climate resilient and future ready homes while providing flexible living spaces for residents.

“It’s a constant process of improvement,” Linda emphasises, “which means our next build will be even better again.”

The IHHC extends our congratulations to Regis for its win of the Award and our appreciation to Bunzl Australia for its commitment to recognising and rewarding these important initiatives within the aged care sector.