The Center is one of the first hospital-based programs with the aim of identifying, controlling, and eventually preventing exposures to environmental variables that may cause adult—and particularly pediatric—cancer, as well as other health issues in our children. This goal is supported by all earnings from the Center's industrial cleaning products.
Deirdre has played a key role as President of The Environmental Center, which has counseled hundreds of institutions on green materials and sustainable practices, including hospitals, schools, government agencies, and large companies.
The Environmental Center advised HUMC on environmental materials and methods that are helping to improve indoor air quality at the medical center's new Sarkis & Siran Gabrellian Women's and Children's Pavilion, which is one of the country's first environmentally-conscious "green" hospitals. In 2006, the Environmental Center received a regional Quality Award from the Environmental Protection Agency for its "greening" initiatives.
The award-winning Greening the Cleaning® program, developed by the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center, aims to eliminate all cleaning products containing harmful components and replace them with ecologically friendly alternatives. So far, the approach has been deployed in hundreds of healthcare facilities, government agencies, businesses, and schools, with direct cleaning cost reductions ranging from budget neutral to 75 percent.
The Greening the Cleaning® initiative has resulted in a 15% cost savings at Hackensack University Medical Center, which was the first to implement it in 2001.
In addition to her work at the Center, Deirdre and her husband own and operate the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, a 4,000-acre working cattle ranch in northern New Mexico that gives children with cancer and other blood diseases, as well as children who have lost a brother or sister to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the American cowboy experience (SIDS).
The camp is partially funded by all of the revenues from the Environmental Center's retail cleaning product line. Deirdre's environmental health leadership has been acknowledged by a number of organizations. She was named Woman of the Year by the USO of Metropolitan New York in May 2008.
She was a driving force behind the passing of the $945 million Combating Autism Act in 2006. As a result, she was named Person of the Year by Spectrum, a publication for families of children with autism, as well as a "Champion for Autism" by the Morris-Union Jointure Commission in New Jersey's Autism Education Foundation.
She has also won the Rachel Carson Award from the National Audubon Society for her environmental efforts, an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Pace University, and the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation's Excellence in Cancer Awareness Award.
Deirdre is the author of two New York Times best-selling books: Growing Up Green, Baby, and Child Care, the newest book in the Green This! series, which is a practical family guide to raising children in an increasingly toxic world, and Green This!
Volume 1: Greening Your Cleaning, which provides a wealth of insights and expert knowledge for defending families from toxic substances. She's also the author of the national hit The Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids and Cowboys, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.
Deirdre sits on the boards of the National Autism Association, Safe Minds, Generation Rescue, SKIP of New York, and East Harlem Council for Human Services, Inc., Boriken Neighborhood Health Center, among other children's health organizations.
