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Products & Solutions

Minimizing our environmental impact with an ambition to create low-carbon and circular solutions with optimized impact potential. 

Sustainability

Products and components represent the biggest part of our total company emissions and will require great transition from how we design and produce our products, to how we deliver our solutions. We aim to create low-carbon and circular solutions with optimized impact potential. Below you will find highlights from our action plan toward our ambition.

 

Reduction plan - products

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Our product design philosophy follows the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ mindset. We optimize resources by using smarter design techniques to minimize material use. We prioritize durability, reusability, and refurbishment where feasible. And at the end of a product’s life cycle, we design for recyclability.

Products and materials used in our products represent the biggest part of our total emission, so focus on sustainability in our product development process is key. We have developed and are implementing three key tools to ensure that we make informed decisions in the product development process: the ZeroAim Tool and Knowledge Library, the Simplified LCA Tool and a Sustainability Business Case Model.

Carbon footprints reduction

We use post-consumer/industrial recycled content and highly recyclable plastics to reduce carbon footprint and improve recyclability. We replace fossil-based polymers with low-carbon renewable feedstock for identical product functionality. In textiles/packaging, we enable high recycled content for mom-material packaging to enhance recyclability.

Circularity

In addition to designing for recyclability and refurbishment, we are also looking into how we can enhance recycling and refurbishment internally. As discussed in the Net Zero Site section, we have good systems and initiatives in place to recycle scrap, and waste, and in Mexico we have expanded to also take-back and recycle used products.

Digitization and digitalization

To create sustainable solutions, improving digitization and digitalization is crucial. Digitization involves creating software solutions to reduce material usage while digitization converts physical products into digital form for tracking and enhancing functionality.

Services

We minimize environmental impact while increasing product use. “Needs-based subscription models” and a sharing-based ownership model improve resource efficiency and reduce waste. This allows us to save lives with the same or lower carbon footprint.

The pandemic led to a shift towards virtual services, which offers improved value due to time, emission, and cost efficiencies. Virtual services expand productivity, efficiency, utilization, and patient risk-reduction through better learning and up-time. We have a goal to offer 80% of services virtually.


Examples of our progress

Processes & Tools

ZeroAim Tool and Knowledge Library

The ZeroAim Tool is a qualitative tool consisting of sustainability-related questions and tips on making the solution more sustainable.

The tool is divided into three different categories;

  1. Single-use products (such as medical products that cannot be reused due to hygiene criteria),
  2. Reusable products (such as most of our training products and simulators),
  3. digital products (such as apps and digital systems).

Within each category are questions designed for the respective use model of the product, with a tip for each question.

To complement the tool, we have a Sustainability Knowledge Library consisting of insight and guidelines for designing more sustainable solutions. The tool is being implemented by the teams throughout the product development process.

Simplified LCA Tool

The Simplified LCA Tool is a quantitative tool with a calculator to measure CO2e emissions from products and logistics.

We are implementing the tool to be used to compare one material type to another in the product development process and conduct a complete LCA for a product.

By combining the ZeroAim Tool and the Simplified LCA Tool, we ensure that the teams get guidelines on how to design for more sustainable solutions and use the LCA tool to check and ensure that the design choices lead to minimized product emissions.

Sustainability Business Case Model

The Sustainability Business Case Model is a tool used to ensure sustainability is integrated into the commercial Business Case Model. The Sustainability Business Case Model uses input from the Simplified LCA Tool and illustrates the CO2e emission against the monetary cost.

We are working on implementing an internal shadow price for carbon in the Business Case Model.

Helping save lives,
in a sustainable manner

Sustainability Update May 2024