As a veteran healthcare leader and passionate advocate for environmental sustainability, Maisie Cheung, Sr. Director of Marketing, is encouraged to see a growing appetite in the health sector to go green.

“We have a long way to go to stop the unintentional environmental harm caused by healthcare, but there are certainly more organizations who are paying attention and taking action to reduce their environmental impact,” said Cheung.

The healthcare industry contributes to a significant pollution problem that has serious on the planet. The equivalent of 4.4 per cent of global net greenhouse gas emissions come from the healthcare industry, according to Health Care Without Harm, a global environmental advocacy organization.

Healthcare’s environmental toll causes a chain reaction of consequences: Worsening climate change causes greater health challenges, which increases patient demand for more healthcare – which ultimately has a bigger impact on the planet.

Fortunately, the conversation around reducing healthcare’s environmental footprint is getting louder and leading to real change. More organizations have been inspired to focus more intensely on improving their record on sustainability – including Medtronic, both within its own operations and more broadly as a partner.

“Sustainability is a team sport. No single organization can fix it by themselves,” said Padina Pezeshki, Principal Medical Science Advisor. “Given the size of our company and the number of patients we impact through our products, we take our responsibility to making healthcare more sustainable very seriously and work on amplifying our impact.”

With operations in more than 150 countries and over 95,000 employees globally, Medtronic has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and reducing carbon emissions to net-zero in its operations, supply chain and logistics by 2045.

By conserving resources, producing less waste, and cutting carbon emissions at sites around the world, Medtronic is making a growing impact.

Since 2020, Medtronic has:

• Reduced operational greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 52 per cent as of 2024, surpassing its goal of 50 per cent by a year;
• Lowered operational greenhouse gas emissions by 44 per cent;
• Sourced 42 per cent of operational energy from renewables and alternatives;
• Reduced water usage intensity by 28 per cent; and
• Cut operational waste intensity by 19 per cent, exceeding its target of 15 per cent.

Medtronic Canada has a long track record of leadership to advance the company’s overall environmental stewardship. The Canadian headquarters in Brampton, Ont. was designed with sustainability in mind. When it opened its doors in 2009, it became the first Medtronic office globally to be certified as a LEED building, the most widely used green building rating system in the world.

“We’ve always had a high awareness of importance of the environment,” said Cheung, noting Medtronic Canada co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care. “It’s an evolving and ongoing effort that’s meaningful and impactful.”

For decades, Medtronic has embraced out-of-the-box thinking to create state-of-the-art technology to help people overcome health challenges like heart disease and diabetes. Medtronic channels that same spirit of innovation to protect the planet by extending the life of medical devices and diverting waste. In Canada alone, this has prevented more than 10,000 devices annually from being sent to the landfill.

Other examples of how Medtronic Canada is reducing its environmental footprint include:

• Creating an app that allows patients to monitor their cardiac devices from their phones rather than using physical monitors that would eventually be bound for landfills. More than 5,000 patients in Canada are using the MyCareLink app and our aim is to expand to 60,000 patients which will effectively reduce thousands of tonnes of waste¹.
• Redesigning a vessel sealing device (LigaSure^TM) to reduce ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilization gas volumes by 47 per cent and reduce 2.7 million feet of plastic tubing per year².
• Developing endoscopic stapling system (Signia^TM) with a reusable handle that can be used for up to 300 procedures compared to traditional single-use devices that have to be thrown out after each procedure³.
• Leveraging an in-house Integrated Health Solutions team to help hospitals improve operational efficiencies that maximize resources, reduce wait times, and ultimately reduce the environmental impact of caring for patients.
• Empowering internal environmental action groups across Canada, where employees come up with ideas to drive sustainability.

Medtronic Canada builds on green initiatives within its own operations by working with health organizations across the country to achieve their sustainability targets.

“We’re continuously engaging with customers to expand what we can do together for sustainability in Canada. It’s a very fluid process,” Cheung said.

The growing awareness of healthcare’s impact on the planet’s health is fostering greater collaboration among sector partners, thereby reducing their collective environmental impact, said Pezeshki.

“As awareness increases, more people are looking for support to improve their performance. That’s good for everyone. It’s good for business, it’s good for stakeholders, it’s good for investors, and it’s good for the planet.”

 

References:

¹Medtronic data on file
²Based on internal testing memo RE00407659 Project Green - - LigaSure™ Improvements Memorandum, June 3, 2022.
³Meissner M, Lichtnegger S, Gibson S, Saunders R. Evaluating the Waste Prevention Potential of a Multi- versus Single-Use Surgical Stapler. Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2021 Sep 18;14:3911-3921. doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S325017. PMID: 34566440; PMCID: PMC8457861.