Sustainability Medical Devices: Evaluation and Integration in the Design Process

The medical sector plays a crucial role in the current environmental crisis. Beyond GHG emissions, MDs can impact social equality by e.g., incorporating discriminatory biases. These unsustainable practices negatively impact human health, creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Biomedical designers have a significant influence on this given that 80% of a MD’s footprint is locked in during the design phase. We aim to bridge the gap between design for sustainability (D4S), medical device design, and their associated methodologies and tools. We aspire to enhance multi-criteria decision-making for holistic sustainability in MD development through a methodological quantification tool to facilitate:

• Identifying and balancing trade-offs between the different dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, clinical, economic) related to MD design
• Quantifying these impact categories throughout the design process dealing with the uncertainty in the early design phases