We are all aware of how sustainability (recycling, reusing, and re-purposing) initiatives within our healthcare supply chain can save money and could even create new revenue streams for our healthcare organizations. But do you know that if your healthcare organization goes one step further and creates a culture (from the top down) of eliminating waste at all levels of your supply chain, you can save millions as a byproduct. This is the essence of a circular economy: Zero waste in a landfill!
Going One Step Further: Circular Economy
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines a circular economy as, “One that is restorative and regenerative by design, and which aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles.” In short, this definition means working with your board, management, suppliers, and department heads and managers to continuously monitor and control the waste factor in your healthcare organization. For instance, if your suppliers aren’t using recyclable boxes to send their goods to your hospital then it is the supply chain department’s job to negotiate with your suppliers to provide this new level of sustainability for your hospital, system, or IDN. If a supplier won’t accommodate you on this issue, bring this to the attention of your group purchasing organizations on their next bid.
A New Way of Thinking About Waste: A Cultural Shift
“Beginning at the end” of a product’s lifecycle is the best way to rethink waste. For instance, if you are going to purchase new desks, chairs, tables, etc., what is going to happen to the old desks, chairs, and tables? Can you recycle, reuse, or repurpose them? At one hospital that I worked with where we built a new administrative, support services, and patient wing, we reused 87% of the old furniture from the old hospital at the new hospital. In fact, I received the President’s old desk for my new office. That’s the cultural shift from the top down I’m talking about that saved millions in the process for my employer, because we began to plan at the beginning for the furniture’s end of its lifecycle.
Supply Chain is a Key Cog in this New Circular Economy
The supply chain is in on the beginning, middle, and end of a product’s lifecycle for most commodities. That’s why their role is so important in the new circular economy. Here’s how Earth Friendly Products’ sustainable supply chain policy sees the supply chain’s responsibility in this new culture:
- Collaborating with suppliers to design and implement a system to track and document the environmental attributes of their products.
- Compiling records to produce an annual summary of the healthcare organization’s environmentally responsible purchasing actions to evaluate the effectiveness of how these things have helped reduce the overall environmental impacts.
- Identifying opportunities to educate end users about the impacts of their product choices.
You might think this new work would be an extra burden or workload for supply chain management, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just formalizing many of the sustainability initiatives they have been working on already and then “beginning at the end” of a product’s lifecycle on every one of their purchases going forward.
The Circular Economy is Here to Stay
It’s my understanding that most of the diamonds we buy today are recycled, since the supply of new diamonds is scarce and very expensive. It’s the same with the millions of dollars of products we buy each year; the materials to produce them are getting scarce and very expensive. So, it is just good business to conserve (recycle, reuse, and repurpose) the supplies we are buying at our hospitals in the new circular economy. This philosophy should be part of your hospital, system, or IND’s annual strategic plans as a survival tactic for the future. Lastly, “Look for small wins, and build on those foundations,” is good advice we should heed from Nadereh Afsharmanesh, Vice President of Sustainability and Education at Earth Friendly Products.