Sustainability of the Healthcare sector: an international event for exchanges of ideas and challenges

Two days were dedicated to exchanges of knowledge and good practices to promote sustainability in the healthcare sector with Swedish partners involved at the forefront of the development of a greener future.

SUSTAINABLE HEALTHCARE | A GROUNDBREAKING CONFERENCE

An event full of speeches that of 28 June, held at the Golinelli Foundation, which saw the Swedish delegation guest of the Emilia-Romagna Region on 28 and 29 June on the theme of Sustainable Health, on the occasion of the visit of a delegation of Swedish companies and partners of the Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare and the Swedish Energy Agency.

Alongside the interventions of the political authorities of the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Skane region, numerous contributions from companies that today work between research and innovation to produce solutions aimed at improving the environmental impacts of the health sector. Among these, our partners Newster System and GVS, members of Clust-ER Health, have brought examples of activities in the field of sustainability, respectively, on hospital waste management and in production in the MedTech field. Politecnica, a member of Clust-ER Build, has instead overseen an intervention on the construction and design of buildings in the health and hospital sector.

The Swedish companies producing green solutions in the field of energy saving and waste management, mainly aimed at the Healthcare sector and interested in interfacing with Italian companies in the sector for internationalization processes and to learn more about the Italian Health System and the Emilia-Romagna Region, intervened by presenting:

1. Green Furniture Concept: Sustainable furnishings for hospitals
2. Medclair: Climate-smart solutions for measurement, collection and destruction of nitrous oxide for the hospital and dental sector
3. Paxxo: Innovative solutions for waste management and packaging
4. Avidicare: Ventilation systems for hospitals
5. Tarkett: Sustainable flooring designed for the care of patients and staff within healthcare facilities.
6. Belok: Climate-smart solutions for the energy efficiency of buildings, including hospitals
7. Notisum: Legal Compliance Software
8. Nordic Energy Audit: Energy Efficiency Solution

• Watch the live coverage of the morning session
• Watch the live broadcast of the afternoon session

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS ON THE TERRITORY

On June 29, however, an itinerant day was held, visiting the Mirandola district and the Sant’Orsola Polyclinic.

Thanks to the collaboration of the Mario Veronesi Technopole and the Democenter Foundation, guests were able to visit the applied research laboratories on materials and listened to the testimonies of local companies that showed their initiatives and solutions in the field of materials, energy supply and plant engineering, such as AIMAG Group, Medica Spa and Fresenius-Kabi.

In the afternoon, however, it was the staff of the IRCCS Policlinico di Sant’Orsola to host and guide the delegation, showing the new management plan of the hospital with the structural changes planned in the coming years and aimed at sustainability, the project “The hospital of tomorrow” born in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the departments of the new cardio-thoraco-vascular pole in Hall 23.

An urgent issue

The sustainability of the health sector is becoming a theme of priority importance, to be addressed with the same importance that is dedicated to the other sectors of our daily lives that we are already used to perceiving as problematic in terms of emissions, waste and environmental impact in general.

In the words of Felicia Hedetoft, contact person for the Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare, “it is unlikely that the simple reaction to the disruption is a sustainable strategy for the future. The World Health Organization has made the discouraging estimate that 5-15% of global carbon emissions come from health services in developed countries. Establishing a culture of sustainability and eco-efficiency among global health infrastructures is critical in the fight against climate change.”

We hope, therefore, that this event marks the beginning of a fruitful collaboration on a theme of crucial importance and that it will produce an involvement of all those actors engaged in innovation in the health sector.

To learn more:

• NORDIC CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE HEALTHCARE
• The world’s greenest hospital