Speaker
Seema Wadhwa
Seema Wadhwa is the executive director of environmental stewardship for Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving 12.5 million members. She leads a broad portfolio that spans several key issues, including climate, waste, water, food and products. Her environmental stewardship work includes collaborating across a wide set of functions, including facilities, purchasing, finance, community health and physician groups. Ms. Wadhwa represents Kaiser Permanente externally in coalitions, policy arenas and other critical forums. She works to continue Kaiser Permanente’s leadership across healthcare and evolve efforts to support communities to create equitable and inclusive action for environment and health. Prior to her time at KP, Ms. Wadhwa worked as the assistant vice president of sustainability and wellness for Inova Health System in Virginia. During that time, she developed the organizational framework for sustainable operations that included energy, water, waste management, sustainable foods, alternative transportation and environmentally preferable purchasing. She put in place key data and system tools and established the governance and organizational structures, policy recommendations and goals to hardwire climate and health into the organization. She also served as a national director for the Healthier Hospital Initiatives, a coalition of 1,300 hospitals across the U.S. to accelerate the adoption of sustainable and climate smart scalable solutions. She most recently founded her own consultancy, working with mission-driven and nonprofit organizations across the country and advising on strategies for sustainability. She has spoken, written and published extensively on environmental and sustainability issues and co-authored the first book for leadership in the field of healthcare sustainability. She has a degree in civil engineering from the University of Alberta and hails from the great country of Canada, where she grew up. Ms. Wadhwa started her career building roads and neighborhoods and now works to create healthier and more equitable communities.