Eco-designing a sustainable future for healthcare
With increasing sustainability demands on the medical device and pharma industry, such as increasing regulatory requirements and implementation of sustainability weightings in public tenders, companies are feeling the pressure to re-evaluate their processes and products. Eco-design or Design for Sustainability is an approach to integrate sustainability factors right from the start in the initial phase of product development. By analysing the entire life cycle of a product, the factors that drive its environmental impact can be identified and optimised to meet sustainability requirements.
This article explores the approaches of three companies—Ypsomed, Röchling Medical, and Sanofi—that have integrated eco-design principles into their product development processes. Ypsomed, for example, has embedded eco-design guidelines throughout their development stages, focusing on material choices to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. Röchling Medical employs Design-for-Sustainability principles, resulting in products like a redesigned trocar that uses fewer materials and facilitates easier recycling. Meanwhile, Sanofi has committed to eco-designing all new products by 2025, with a particular focus on sustainable packaging.
A guide to eco-designing products
Since 2021, the Swiss drug delivery device maker Ypsomed has been applying eco-design principles in the development of new products, trying to integrate environmental considerations into every stage of product development.1 To guide this process, an eco-design guideline was developed which sets out the areas for action and defines the company’s objectives.
An eco-design index, a checklist with an extensive set of sustainability factors, helps device engineers keep track of the criteria that must be considered. Underlying every development process is a life cycle assessment (LCA) which calculates a product’s cradle-to-gate emissions. The LCAs conducted thus far have revealed that Ypsomed’s biggest potential for reducing CO2 emissions is in materials, mainly plastics, followed by packaging and production. Consequently, the company is focusing on these key areas, particularly on plastics, switching to renewable materials wherever possible. For Ypsomed pursuing sustainability does not mean a compromise on safety and quality. And contrary to belief, sustainability and cost are not in conflict. Rather reducing the number of parts used, reducing waste and reducing material use–central aspects of sustainability–can even help to keep costs down.2
Ypsomed’s Eco-design: Objective and Application—The illustration below highlights what Ypsomed deems the most important eco-design aspects in the life cycle of a product.
Ypsomed’s eco-design approach is embedded in the company’s “NetZero Program”, Ypsomed’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction roadmap, which aims for net zero emissions by 2040 along the entire value chain. By 2030, Ypsomed aims to offer a selection of products that meets net zero carbon emissions across their individual value chain. Currently, the products available in the NetZero Program achieve at least 30 percent CO2 reduction.3
Eco-designing medical devices
Eco-design is integrated in Sanofi’s “Planet care” roadmap and is one of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility flagships. Sanofi pledges to eco-design all its new products by 2025 and its top-20-selling products by 2030. Packaging is a crucial factor. Since 2020, Sanofi has been implementing an eco-design approach for packaging, with the goal to have 100 percent of packaging for its new products developed in line with its eco-design approach by 2025. Additionally, Sanofi is committed to having its vaccines packaging blister-free by 2027. So far, 33 percent of its syringe vaccines’ packaging is blister-free. To accelerate the execution of Life cycle assessments (LCA) Sanofi launched an internal Eco-design digital intelligence (EDDi) tool to model, measure & simulate, monitor & optimise a medicine’s environmental profile aligned with ISO 14040/44 and the European Commission Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) standards.
Using the eco-design approach, Sanofi is developing new medical devices with reduced weight, reduced assembly complexity, and reduced number of materials, resulting in a reduction in the overall environmental impact. Eco-design efforts have thus contributed to the development of the drug delivery system TouStar®, hailed as the first reusable injection pen for a concentrated insulin.4 Before the introduction of TouStar® concentrated insulins have been offered only in disposable pens because of the risk of a mix up with regular insulin. Therefore, TouStar® was designed with a dedicated replaceable cartridge system which is compatible only with Toujeo® insulin cartridges.
TouStar® is said to offer the potential of reducing the environmental impact of basal insulin therapy.
Toujeo® concentrated insulin reduces waste by decreasing the number of cartridges needed by approximately one third in comparison with a regular strength insulin
Reduced number of components: TouStar® comprises 21 parts. In comparison, ClikStar or NovoPen4 have 33 and 29 parts respectively.5
As TouStar® is reusable for up to three years, less material and energy is consumed in both manufacture and distribution of the product compared with equivalent disposable pens.6
Improving the carbon footprint of a single-use device
Applying Design-for-Sustainability principles Röchling Medical has developed a trocar with a reduced carbon footprint.7 The company claims that in terms of material production and processing, the global warming potential of the eco-designed trocar, a single-use device used in minimally invasive surgery, is reduced by 51 percent compared to a conventional trocar. What makes the optimised trocar stand out?
Reduction in waste by reducing material use by 32 percent.
Reduction in the number of parts needed which led to not only reducing the number of injection-moulded parts, but also to reducing the number of process steps in the assembly.
Adherence to “Design for disassembly” by using snap-fits to connect the components, making it easier easy to disassemble for disposal or reuse.
Applying “Design for recycling” by reducing the number of material types, with the material used being clearly marked on each component to make material separation easy.
Use of environmentally friendly materials such as PP and bio-based PLA.
These examples illustrate how eco-design not only meets regulatory and market demands but also fosters innovation, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness in the industry. Looking forward, the medtech and pharma industry must continue to prioritise sustainability, pushing the boundaries of innovation to meet environmental goals. By adopting eco-design principles companies can ensure that a product’s ecological footprint is considered at every stage of product development. Eco-design is an opportunity to lead in a greener, more sustainable future for healthcare.
Thip Pruckner, Market Intelligence Senior Expert
Sources:
- https://yds.ypsomed.com/en/sustainability.html (accessed July 8, 2024) ↩︎
- Jost R, Kalbermatter G, “Interview: the Benefits of Being an Early Adopter of Sustainability Principles”. ONdrugDelivery, Issue 159 (Apr/May 2024), pp 6–10. ↩︎
- https://yds.ypsomed.com/en/sustainability.html (Zugriff am 08.07.2024) ↩︎
- Sanofi, Eco-Design Factsheet, published in May 2023 ↩︎
- https://www.dca-design.com/creating-drug-delivery-device-developing-markets (Zugriff am 09.07.2024) ↩︎
- https://www.dca-design.com/work/sanofi-toustar%C2%AE (Zugriff am 09.07.2024) ↩︎
- https://www.roechling.com/medical/competences/product-design-and-development/sustainable-trocar (Zugriff am 05.07.2024) ↩︎
