Being green is healthy, and this plan includes a focus on our daily quality of life. We focus on personal health through being more active and eating in such a way that is better for us, better for our local environment, and better for our local economy. We also focus on neighborhood health through an abundance of trees and gardens. Community design that incorporates parks and open spaces, paths for biking and walking, and access to healthy foods contributes to overall community health. The growing cost of health care, especially preventable conditions associated with obesity and lifestyle disease, is an expensive national problem. Diet and exercise have a clear link to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well, by promoting walking and biking over driving and increasing consumption of locally grown food that requires little transportation.
Goals
• Raise awareness that sustainable living is healthy
Decrease our community’s lifestyle disease rates such as diabetes and heart disease through healthy eating and exercise. Provide access to fresh, local and/or organic food in all neighborhoods through grocery stores, farmers markets and community gardens supported by local agriculture. Increase the number of short walking and biking trips through safety and other programs. Reduce barriers for disabled and elderly residents.
• Plant more Florida-friendly and native trees and landscapes
Plant half a million trees by 2015 to achieve a 30 percent tree canopy by 2020 and encourage native, drought tolerant landscaping to cool our communities, capture greenhouse gas emissions, beautify our neighborhoods, and provide wildlife habitat.
> Healthy Communities Implementation Table
> Read the Sustainability Scorecard
If you cannot view PDF 
files, you can download Acrobat Reader for free from Adobe Systems, Inc. In order to use PDF files, you must have Acrobat installed on your computer.
"Healthy people depend on a healthy environment. At Baptist Health, it is our mission to improve the health and well-being of the individuals and communities we serve. Therefore, we strive to promote environmental sustainability practices and reduce our ecological footprint, in order to ensure optimal health both within our community today and for future generations."
