By Dr. Aisha Mensah, Director of Sustainability ยท Category: Innovation & Sustainability ยท Published 19 August 2026
Healthcare is responsible for a significant share of global emissions, and single-use medical devices sit uncomfortably at the centre of that conversation. Chronic condition care is particularly exposed: a person with a stoma may change an appliance several hundred times a year, and someone self-catheterising will use four to six catheters a day, every day, for decades.
The honest starting point is that these products exist for good reasons. Sterility, infection control, dignity and safety are not negotiable. The task is not to romanticise reuse. It is to reduce the footprint of every unit and every episode of care without compromising the person relying on it.
Where the footprint actually sits
Intuition is a poor guide here. Life cycle assessment repeatedly shows that the environmental burden of a medical device is distributed very differently from how most people assume.
- Raw materials and manufacturing typically dominate, particularly for polymer-heavy components and energy-intensive processes.
- Packaging is highly visible but often a smaller share of total impact than its bulk suggests โ though it is one of the easiest areas to improve quickly.
- Distribution matters most where products are air-freighted or shipped in low-density configurations.
- Use phase includes the water, energy and consumables consumed around the device, including clinical appointments and travel.
- Disposal attracts the most attention and is frequently the smallest component of the total.
The implication is uncomfortable but useful. Substituting one plastic for another at end of life will not move the number very much. Redesigning what is made, how much of it is made, and how long a patient needs it, will.
The overlooked lever: clinical efficacy is a sustainability strategy
This is the point most often missed in procurement conversations. A wound that heals in eight weeks instead of twenty-four does not simply cost less. It consumes dramatically less of everything.
- Fewer dressings. A dressing with longer safe wear time reduces total units consumed across the treatment episode, even if each unit is more materially complex.
- Fewer appointments. Every avoided district nurse visit removes vehicle emissions, clinical waste, PPE and consumables.
- Fewer complications. Avoided infections mean avoided antibiotics, avoided admissions and avoided surgery โ by far the largest carbon events in any care pathway.
- Less leakage waste. In stoma care, an appliance that fails prematurely is discarded early. Reliable sealing reduces both distress and disposal volume.
Technologies such as Hydrofiberยฎ, which supports extended wear time and effective exudate management, therefore deliver an environmental return alongside a clinical one. Faster healing is the greenest outcome available in wound care.
What responsible manufacturers should be doing
- Design out material at source. Thinner films, fewer laminate layers, lighter baseplates and eliminated secondary packaging โ without reducing performance.
- Rethink packaging systematically. Removing unnecessary cartons, moving to mono-material or recyclable structures and improving pallet density all reduce impact while helping distribution efficiency.
- Decarbonise operations. Renewable electricity across manufacturing sites, energy efficiency programmes and credible science-aligned reduction targets covering the supply chain, not just direct emissions.
- Publish real data. Product-level carbon footprints and life cycle assessments that procurement teams can actually compare, rather than general claims.
- Support end-of-life pathways. Practical guidance and, where feasible, take-back and recycling schemes for the parts of a product that can be recovered.
- Design for reduced consumption. Products and support programmes that help people use the right item correctly the first time reduce waste from trial, error and abandonment.
What procurement can ask for
Buyers hold considerable influence and increasingly have social value and net zero criteria to satisfy. The most productive questions are specific: What is the product-level carbon footprint, and how was it calculated? What proportion of packaging is recyclable in our waste stream? What is the evidence for wear time and healing rates, and what does that mean for total units consumed per patient per year? What are your supply chain emissions targets and are they externally validated?
Honest conclusion
There is no version of chronic condition care that is free of single-use devices, and pretending otherwise helps nobody who depends on them. What is achievable is a steady, evidenced reduction in the footprint of each unit, each pathway and each healing episode โ pursued transparently, and never at the expense of the person the product exists to serve.
Caring for people and the planet is part of what forever caring means.