Embracing circularity in healthcare and shifting from a linear “take-make-dispose” model to a regenerative system can reduce negative impacts on emissions, resource scarcity and biodiversity while supporting the sector’s competitiveness.
Considering that the medical technology sector represents over 2,000 000 products, services and solutions available on the Union market and that individual devices differ greatly in terms of complexity, circularity in the MedTech sector has no “one-size fits all” answer. Rather, it can take many different forms ranging from:
- Maximising the lifetime value of products
- Minimising the use of materials and resources to design optimisation
- Material substitution
- Recycling
- Refurbishment
- Reprocessing
- Exploring chemical recycling and modular medical technologies
The exact opportunities for circularity depend on the type of product, business models, and criteria, such as the value of the material used.
For circular practices to be implemented successfully in healthcare, they need to meet the EU’s exemplary patient safety requirements, the needs of customers, users (including patients and healthcare professionals), and healthcare systems while supporting regulations on waste management. The existing barriers (i.e., regulatory barriers, policy barriers, fragmented definitions and standards, a lack of harmonised tools and methodologies, financial barriers in the healthcare system or technological and clinical barriers) remain to be addressed to fully leverage circular economy, sustainable prosperity and competitiveness potentials in the sector.
MedTech Europe calls for a Circular Economy Act that supports the sustainability and competitive edge of medical technology industries through the following ambitions:
- Ensuring regulatory coherence between Green Deal legislation, circularity requirements and initiatives and the sector-specific regulatory system of the Medical Devices Regulation (EU) 2017/745 and In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Regulation (EU) 2017/746.
- Securing the free circulation of goods in the EU internal market and boosting an EU internal market for waste in support of the circular economy
- Reinforcing the Single Market and the global harmonisation of standards for waste, circularity and secondary raw materials with respect to the quality and safety of patients and healthcare practitioners
- Promoting a more sustainable pattern of production by making secondary materials more attractive
- Establishing a framework for financing and rewarding circularity efforts
- Leverage the transformation synergies of the Green and Digital agendas to increase overall system efficiencies and sustainability performance, such as dematerialisation
- Seeking international alignment on circularity approaches for the medical technology sector with the respect to the quality and security of patients and healthcare practitioners
