Carbon Footprint Analysis of Healthcare Products

A product carbon footprint comprises the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by a product’s full life cycle, from extraction of raw materials to end of life. 

If you manufacture healthcare products, analysing your product’s carbon footprint will help your company understand its product climate change impact, identify the carbon hotspots in its life cycle and subsequently highlight options for carbon reduction. Medical and non-medical equipment make up 18% of NHS England’s carbon footprint, if the NHS is to make it to net zero by 2045, suppliers must ensure their products are as low carbon as possible. 

Healthcare organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental credibility of their products, and from 2028 new requirements will be introduced to the NHS Net Zero Supplier Roadmap which will focus on carbon footprinting for individual products supplied to the NHS. Product carbon footprinting will meet the requirements and help your customers get a more accurate understanding of their supply chain emissions.   

What is involved in a Carbon Footprint Analysis of Healthcare Products? 

The CSH team will undertake a process-based cradle-to-grave carbon footprint analysis of your product and its packaging in line with the GHG Protocol, measuring the total GHG emissions impact from raw material extraction through to manufacturing, transportation, usage and disposal.  

CSH can support you with: 

• Data collection: we’ll take you through the data collection process to help you identify which resources need to be measured and what data sources are needed.  

• Measurement: we’ll estimate your product’s carbon footprint based on the resource use during the product’s lifecycle, in line with the GHG Protocol  

• Analysis and report: the results will be written up in a report, breaking down the GHG emissions according to the product’s lifecycle stages and sources, identifying carbon hotspots 

•  Interpretation: we’ll take you through the results of your product’s carbon footprint and explain the hotspots to help you fully understand your impact and enable you to address it 

• Modelling of pathway impact: If the introduction of your product is changing the process of a clinical pathway, we can model the impact of the change on the GHG emissions embedded in the pathway/service.  

Who is this service for?  

Any healthcare organisation or supplier looking to understand the GHG emissions’ impact of their healthcare products.   

Success stories 

Evaluating the environmental impact before and after introducing Dora(link is external), an AI technology delivering autonomous phone conversations, to the cataract surgery pathway at four sites in England.   

How much does a Carbon Footprint Analysis of a Healthcare Product cost?  

Every healthcare organisation and supplier is unique and will have a variety of needs and requirements concerning the volume and complexity of the analysis. Our team of experts will work with you to make sure we meet your individual needs