Ambu is a leader in single-use endoscopes and other advanced health care products. A new challenge is to integrate sustainability at the core of product design. Photo: Ambu
Not least COVID-19 has shown the value of avoiding risks of cross-contamination in health care. Already well before the pandemic, this was a focus area for health care products provider Ambu. In 2009, the Danish-headquartered corporation launched its first disposable endoscope. Nicklas Funk, Sustainability Engineer at Ambu.
Photo: Ambu
“There is no doubt that single-use endoscopes will become more popular in health care since it is difficult to get reusable endoscopes 100 % sterile between examinations or treatments of two patients. And even in reusable endoscopy, disposable plastics and environmental impact hide in the background where the reprocessing happens. Still, the responsibility is on us to improve the sustainability of our products. As we launch new innovations that make the shift to single-use, we have a unique opportunity to invest in sustainability and improve on use of materials and environmental performance,” says Nicklas Funk, Sustainability Engineer at Ambu.
Trained in Design & Innovation engineering at DTU, Nicklas Funk is based in Ambu’s global innovations department. “We believe it is important to collaborate across function and to have many touch points for sustainability across the company. We will only see an effect of the sustainability efforts when they are implemented in the various projects and innovations.”
Cutting down on PVC and carbon
“The sooner you are able to include the sustainability perspective, the more impact you are likely to get. Nowadays it is generally accepted across industries that 80 % of the environmental impact from a given product is determined already when the conceptual design is defined,” says Nicklas Funk.
To promote a sustainability mindset within the company, Ambu has declared three ambitious goals, all with 2025 as the target year. Firstly, the use of PVC in new innovations from 2025 and onwards should be drastically reduced so 95% of new products are PVC-free. Secondly, all packaging should be recyclable, reusable or compostable. And thirdly, carbon emissions should be reduced by 50 % compared to 2019.
“We want to make Ambu’s sustainability efforts grow and become more integrated in the company, and we want a circular economy mindset to drive this transition,” says Nicklas Funk, adding: “The ideal situation would be if we could use a disposed, say, endoscope, as the raw material for producing new endoscopes. This is currently not feasible because our devices are classified as contaminated waste when they have been in direct contact with a patient. Looking at the near future, we will have to work towards other solutions. This could be using disposed health care equipment as raw material for making for instance garden furniture.”
Sustainable polymer technology
Another facet of Ambu’s strategy is to phase in sustainable polymer technologies. For instance, bio-based polymers, where some of the material originates from renewable feedstock with the aim to reduce carbon emissions.
“This is really interesting, but also challenging. For obvious reasons, the specifications for health care equipment are very strict. While we really want to improve the sustainability of our products, we cannot allow the safety of patients to be compromised in any way,” explains Nicklas Funk. “Therefore, we need to engage with bio-polymer suppliers to understand how this new technology can be suitable for a medical device and what it will take for them to be able to achieve the strict specifications that our sector is subject to. But also make sure that it does not shift the burden. Is it for instance okay to use feedstock from food-waste to produce bio-plastics?”
Short road from idea to product
Founded in 1937, Ambu has evolved from a small Danish company to a large international med-tech corporation with headquarters in Ballerup. Following a long period of steady growth, things have really taken off within the latest decade – coinciding with the launch of the first single-use endoscope. Doors have been opened for hiring new employees, and this trend is likely to continue.
“It is a great feeling to be part of a dynamic organization that has innovation as a top priority. This is highly motivational,” says Nicklas Funk.
The road from idea to product is short at Ambu. Introduction of products which have been underway in just one-and-a-half year is not uncommon, he notes: “As a young engineer it is really fulfilling that you can come up with an idea for a way to improve the sustainability or the value for the health care worker, and very soon after you are able to see a product and also to experience how it is perceived by the end-users.”
