ENKORE
A project for: Innovative Health Initiative (IHI)
BRIEF
The Challenge
The health sector is responsible for up to 5% of total global carbon emissions. Although lower than other sectors that receive significant attention the impact is of sufficient importance for the World Health Organization (WHO) that have recommended to enact relevant laws for addressing high carbon emissions. Solutions that head towards considering a complete life cycle inventory for medical devices, guidance for the practical use of single use disposable devices, implementation of consolidated sustainability operation measures at the healthcare providers level, and/or more policymaking support are needed. The vision of ENKORE is to enable accelerated innovation through an ecoDesign framework (circular, safe & sustainable by design), inspired by the Safe & Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework, reducing the carbon footprint of the European health sector.
FOCUS
The Approach
ENKORE will bring together experts from several fields (e.g., materials technology, end-of-life management, circularity, healthcare, HTA, ELCA/SLCA, packaging, and regulators) and develop comprehensive approaches for healthcare facilities and patients to adopt sustainable practices, from procurement to waste management. It will establish a reliable framework for monitoring and reducing the environmental footprint of packaging and single-use medical devices through the whole value while ensuring the safety for citizens and users. In addition, the ENKORE project will propose a set of evidence-based policy recommendations, guidelines, protocols, and tools for greening hospital devices and primary packaging material, tailored to different users and decision-makers.
CONCLUSIONS
The Envisioned Result
The ENKORE call is expected to drive innovation in sustainable materials and packaging, fostering a shift towards circularity and eco-responsibility. The envisioned results focus on achieving a paradigm shifts in material selection, with emphasis on the development of innovative technologies guided by Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) principles.
PREDICTBY
Our Role
PredictBy is responsible for multiple tasks in this project as experts in Evidence identification and environment & sustainability
Our role in the project consists of conducting the following tasks:
Co-design of the in-depth research strategy
Creation of the ENKORE evidence database