Bengaluru: At the heart of Bengaluru, within one of India’s premier regional cancer centres, a quiet but powerful transformation has been unfolding—one that connects cancer care with environmental stewardship. The Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology (KMIO), long known for its leadership in oncology services, has now achieved ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System (EMS) Certification for its Solid Waste Management (SWM) Facility, marking a significant milestone in sustainable public healthcare.
The journey began in March 2020, when KMIO took a conscious decision to reimagine how waste generated within a large tertiary cancer hospital could be managed scientifically, responsibly, and sustainably. Recognising the environmental footprint of healthcare institutions, KMIO floated a transparent tender to establish a modern SWM facility under a 10-year Build–Own–Operate–Transfer (BOOT) model. The project was awarded after rigorous technical and financial evaluation to the bidder who met the highest environmental sustainability specifications while quoting the lowest financial cost—ensuring both fiscal prudence and ecological responsibility.
KMIO allocated 4,000 square feet of land within its campus for this initiative and mandated strict compliance with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, BBMP Bylaw 2020, and all applicable environmental norms. By 31 December 2020, the entire infrastructure was completed, followed by successful trial runs in early January 2021. What emerged was not merely a waste-processing unit, but a comprehensive, end to end, and self-sustaining environmental system embedded within a cancer hospital.
At the core of the facility is a 1-ton-per-day biogas plant, converting organic and garden waste into clean energy. A dedicated biogas purification system ensures safe and efficient combustion, while a 10 kVA biogas generator produces electricity used to power the SWM facility and charge electric vehicles operating within the KMIO campus. Organic residues, garden waste, and biogas slurry are channelled into aerobic composting, producing high-quality manure that is periodically tested in government laboratories to ensure safety and efficacy.
Dry waste management has been equally systematic. A 500 square ft dry-waste segregation shed enables secondary segregation, storage, and routing of recyclable materials through authorised recyclers and non-governmental organisations. Complementing this are several green measures across the facility, including solar-powered lighting, rejuvenation of a defunct borewell with a new submersible pump, and periodic air-quality monitoring to safeguard staff, patients, and visitors.
Equally important has been the human dimension of this transformation. KMIO invested in capacity building and behavioural change, conducting repeated awareness sessions for staff across departments on scientific waste segregation. BBMP line workers were invited to train housekeeping teams in best practices related to segregation, hygiene, and sanitation, ensuring that sustainability became a shared institutional responsibility rather than a standalone project.
The outcomes of this sustained effort have been substantial. Between January 2021 and November 2025, the facility processed:
• 10,89,631 kilograms of food waste,
• 2,80,250 kilograms of garden waste, and
• 3,73,848 kilograms of non-value dry waste, all diverted away from landfills and directed towards energy generation, composting, or recycling streams.
The compost generated through this process now nourishes over 8,000 trees and 800 potted plants across the KMIO campus, enhancing the hospital’s green cover and reinforcing a healing environment for patients and families. Today, KMIO operates with near-zero organic waste to landfill, a rare achievement for a large public-sector tertiary care hospital in India.
This sustained compliance, environmental performance, and governance maturity culminated in 2025, when the Solid Waste Management Facility successfully underwent an independent audit and was awarded the ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System Certification. The certification formally recognises KMIO’s adherence to global environmental standards and forms part of the broader Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments embedded within the original tender framework. The project’s excellence was further reaffirmed through contract renewals after the second and fourth years of operation.
KMIO’s leadership has described this achievement as a crucial step in aligning cancer care with global environmental stewardship, demonstrating that public healthcare institutions can simultaneously pursue clinical excellence, patient safety, and ecological responsibility. The ISO 14001–certified SWM facility now stands as a model for hospitals across India, illustrating how waste can be transformed into energy, compost, and long-term environmental value.
Through this initiative, the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology has shown that sustainability in healthcare is not an add-on—it is an essential part of building resilient, responsible, and future-ready public healthcare institutions.
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