Journal
ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
Volume 23, Issue 7, Pages 9641-9666Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10668-020-01086-1
Keywords
Eco-design; Environmental impact; Healthcare industry; Life cycle assessment; Medical devices; Sustainability
Funding
- Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy-LEPABE - national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) [UIDB/00511/2020]
- FCT/MCTES [UIDB/50006/2020]
- Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2-O Novo Norte), QREN, FEDER [NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-003262]
- program COMPETE-Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade from FCT [PEst-OE/AGR/UI0211/2011, PEst-C/EME/UI0285/2013]
- Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (P2020), Fundos Europeus Estruturais e de Investimento (FEEI)
- COMPETE 2020, from ANI-Projectos ID&T Empresas em Copromocao, Programas Operacionais POCI
- project insitu.Biomas-Reinvent biomanufacturing systems by using a usability approach for in situ clinic temporary implants fabrication [POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017771]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The medical device industry is facing increasing pressure to assess the environmental impacts of their products and make more sustainable decisions. While studies on life cycle assessment and eco-design in the MDs industry are limited, they show potential to improve the environmental sustainability of medical devices.
Medical devices (MDs) are important health instruments, encompassing an enormous diversity of products, from simple ligatures to pacemakers, bone grafts or auxiliary life support machines. Despite the growing social and economic relevance of the MD industry in the health sector, its environmental problems have only recently started to be discussed. MDs companies worldwide are being pressed to assess the environmental impacts of their products by considering the full life cycle. These pressures are leading to the use of tools which promote fact-based environmental decision-making toward a more sustainable health sector. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and eco-design are well-known methods which may provide the MDs industrial sector with knowledge of the environmental impacts associated with their products and subsequently promote informed decisions leading to more sustainable materials, devices and services. This paper selects and reviews relevant studies using the methodology of LCA or eco-design, either applied in a singular basis or simulated, to access impacts of MDs. Seeking for a comparative analysis, this review is extended to LCA studies for the most used material in the MDs industry: the polymers. Results show that the number of studies is not vast, realizing the yet scarce use of either LCA and eco-design in the scientific literature for MDs. Nevertheless, it is observed that when applied either LCA and eco-deign can promote grounds for an increase in the environmental sustainability of MDs.
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