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Q&A: Non-Profit Launches Sustainable Procurement Guide in Healthcare

11 Questions on how a non-profit organization is guiding healthcare purchasing decisions and what manufacturers need to know.

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“The healthcare sector is both a significant contributor to the global planetary health crisis and uniquely burdened by it,” says Practice Greenhealth’s “Why Sustainability” page. 

The organization is seeking to transform healthcare worldwide so that it reduces the industry’s environmental footprint, with the goal of proactively improving the health, safety, and happiness of individuals and communities worldwide. 

With healthcare representing 18% of the U.S. economy and 10% of the global economy, the industry has enormous buying power to transform the status quo. 

It’s easy to find headlines about the detrimental effects of healthcare—in carbon footprint, single-use plastics, and more. But in a recent BBC article, How do you fix healthcare's medical waste problem? the author posits the question, “What if health care providers didn’t have to choose between sustainability and patient safety?” 

Enter Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) and Practice Greenhealth. HCWH was formed more than 20 years ago in response to the serious problem of medical waste incineration and the potent pollutants that were making people sick. The organization called upon healthcare to act in line with its Hippocratic oath of “first, do no harm.”  Since its founding, HCWH has grown into a broad-based international coalition of hundreds of organizations and thousands of hospitals and health partners in more than 50 countries. Working closely with Health Care Without Harm, Practice Greenhealth is the leading membership and networking organization for sustainable healthcare, delivering environmental solutions to more than 1,100 U.S. hospitals and health systems.


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To further these efforts, Practice Greenhealth released its sustainable procurement guide in July with the goal of practical and cost-effective sustainable supply chain transformation. (See Resources sidebar.) 

Looking to align with health systems’ sustainability goals? Healthcare Packaging talked with Practice Greenhealth’s Beth Eckl, director of environmental purchasing and lead on the sustainable procurement guide, and Scott Rich, director of membership growth and marketing, who offered information for pharma and medical device manufacturers.

1. What are hospitals looking for from life science manufacturers?

Recycling may still be tough in many fast-paced operating rooms due to time constraints. But beyond that, Eckl notes that members continue to struggle with recycling certain packaging. “That is one of the biggest hurdles because they ultimately want to reduce the hospital waste and there are several waste streams, such as solid waste, regulated, and hazardous waste. Hospitals are looking for packaging that would help them reduce their waste and reduce disposal costs. Recyclable or reusable is ideal.”

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The organization highlights the issue of chemicals of concern in packaging, and making sure that the packaging isn't going to leach chemicals that would potentially cause harm to patients or workers in the buildings. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is also important,” says Eckl.

2. What claims can be made on packaging?

A recyclable package is as good as the stream it goes into. There must be access to a given recycling stream. “The Federal Trade Commission Green Guides came out in 1992 and they define what claims can be made. Manufacturers can use the recycling claim if the package can be collected, separated, and recovered by a system that is available to the majority of customers, which they mean as 60%,” Eckl says.

3. How can manufacturers collaborate with health systems?

Healthcare manufacturers (both big and small) know that changing a package configuration is not an easy task with factors such as validation, the use of legacy machinery, and more. Collaboration is needed between manufacturers and their customers for realistic requests and meaningful change. 

Medical device and pharma manufacturers (often referred to as vendors) can now join Practice Greenhealth, where they were unofficial partners in the past. Rich explains, “We've been working over the last year and a half to develop a product for what I call our “non-hospital” and “non-provider” partners to be able to join, because we heard from our supply chain partners that they wanted to help support our mission to transform health care. They also wanted to collaborate and see what our resources were so they can help support that work in the hospitals.”


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