Ques­tions into actions – the first LCA project for Aidian’s Quick­Read go Plus

Life cycle assess­ment (LCA) is already a con­crete part of deci­sion-mak­ing in the medtech indus­try in many areas, but the frame­works to exe­cute them are still large­ly absent. How­ev­er, doing the project once is the only way to build that frame­work as well as valu­able fore­sight. Here is the sto­ry of medtech com­pa­ny Aidian’s first LCA project and the key lessons learned.  

Moti­va­tions to start LCA project

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is becom­ing a con­crete part of every­day deci­sion-mak­ing in the Medtech indus­try. For Aid­i­an, this change has been vis­i­ble both inter­nal­ly and through cus­tomer dia­logue. Cus­tomers with more advanced sus­tain­abil­i­ty frame­works are increas­ing­ly ask­ing about car­bon foot­prints for a giv­en prod­uct. At the same time, Aid­i­an want­ed a clear­er, data-based under­stand­ing of the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of its own devices.

These two dri­vers came togeth­er in an LCA project for Aidian’s QuikRead go Plus Instru­ment. The project was car­ried out in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with Innokas, Aidian’s long-term man­u­fac­tur­ing and devel­op­ment part­ner, and the LCA was con­duct­ed by a sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­sul­tan­cy com­pa­ny Ram­boll Fin­land Oy. For Aid­i­an, this was the first com­pre­hen­sive LCA project of its kind.

“We want­ed reli­able data to sup­port devel­op­ment work and to respond cred­i­bly to cus­tomer ques­tions,” says Jen­ni Puu­runen, ESG Man­ag­er at Aid­i­an. “You can­not reduce envi­ron­men­tal impacts mean­ing­ful­ly if you do not under­stand where those impacts stem from.”

Build­ing under­stand­ing through col­lab­o­ra­tion

The full cra­dle-to-grave LCA was owned by Aid­i­an, and part­ner Innokas con­tributed the man­u­fac­tur­ing gate. It was clear that the project would require col­lab­o­ra­tion. The device had a long and inter­na­tion­al val­ue chain, and no sin­gle orga­ni­za­tion held all the nec­es­sary data. Draw­ing on Innokas’ actu­al pro­duc­tion data gave the cus­tomer more defen­si­ble num­bers for report­ing.

Innokas also played a key role in pro­vid­ing detailed insight into the device struc­ture, com­po­nents, man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, and logis­tics. The prac­ti­cal, prod­uct-lev­el knowl­edge formed an essen­tial foun­da­tion for the assess­ment.

Meet­ings between Innokas and Aid­i­an were fre­quent through­out the project, made nec­es­sary through Innokas hav­ing the most com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of the device’s com­po­si­tion; LCA cal­cu­la­tions require a thor­ough view of the prod­uct struc­ture to ensure reli­able results. There­fore, bring­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty, prod­uct design, and man­u­fac­tur­ing team per­spec­tives togeth­er ensures that the assess­ment reflects real-world con­di­tions rather than assump­tions.

“Hav­ing the right part­ner makes a real dif­fer­ence, espe­cial­ly in your first LCA project,” Puu­runen notes.  

Man­ag­ing data gaps with­out los­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty

As with most first-time LCAs, data avail­abil­i­ty was one of the main chal­lenges. Pri­ma­ry data from across the val­ue chain is not always easy to obtain, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to how devices are used and dis­posed of in dif­fer­ent mar­kets, or which elec­tric­i­ty mix­es apply in dif­fer­ent regions.

In the QuikRead go Plus Instru­ment LCA project, these gaps were addressed through care­ful­ly con­sid­ered aver­age-based assump­tions and the use of rec­og­nized data­bas­es. All assump­tions and com­pro­mis­es were doc­u­ment­ed trans­par­ent­ly.

“This trans­paren­cy is what makes the results usable,” says Puu­runen. “Even when every­thing is not per­fect, you can trust the out­comes when you know exact­ly how the cal­cu­la­tion was done.”

Aid­i­an was sat­is­fied with the lev­el of accu­ra­cy reached already dur­ing this project. Just as impor­tant­ly, the process itself built an inter­nal under­stand­ing of what data is need­ed and how it should be man­aged in the future.

Innokas approach­es this devel­op­ment step by step, mak­ing grad­ual improve­ments to data qual­i­ty and cal­cu­la­tion accu­ra­cy over time. This ensures that sus­tain­abil­i­ty assess­ments become more pre­cise with each iter­a­tion, with­out delay­ing action.

Prepar­ing for future require­ments

Cur­rent cus­tomer expec­ta­tions around LCA data vary by mar­ket and cus­tomer seg­ment. In the Nordics, inter­est is already high, and for some hos­pi­tals and lab­o­ra­to­ries, envi­ron­men­tal data may be a require­ment rather than a mere pref­er­ence. In oth­er mar­kets, expec­ta­tions are still devel­op­ing.

For Aid­i­an, start­ing ear­ly has been a strate­gic choice.

“LCA is not only meet­ing future require­ments,” Puu­runen says. “The knowl­edge you gain sup­ports bet­ter prod­uct devel­op­ment deci­sions from day one.”

From Innokas’ per­spec­tive, the project also demon­strates how sus­tain­abil­i­ty work ben­e­fits from close, long-term part­ner­ships. When prod­uct knowl­edge, man­u­fac­tur­ing insight, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty exper­tise are com­bined, com­pa­nies can move from high-lev­el ambi­tions to con­crete action.

Key take­aways for com­pa­nies con­sid­er­ing LCA

After this Project, Puu­runen con­sid­ers this the most crit­i­cal advice for com­pa­nies in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions as them who are con­sid­er­ing LCA projects.

• Start ear­ly, even if LCA is not manda­to­ry yet.
• Do prop­er ground­work and make sure that cal­cu­la­tions have been done accord­ing to a stan­dard like ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 as well as with prod­uct spe­cif­ic reg­u­la­tions in mind.
• Doc­u­ment assump­tions care­ful­ly and be trans­par­ent about the cal­cu­la­tions, lim­i­ta­tions and com­pro­mis­es.
• Col­lab­o­rate across the val­ue chain to improve access to pri­ma­ry data over time.
• Work with a part­ner who under­stands both the prod­uct and LCA method­ol­o­gy if inter­nal expe­ri­ence is lim­it­ed.

Look­ing ahead, Aid­i­an and Innokas see fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ties to deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion around sus­tain­abil­i­ty, includ­ing cir­cu­lar econ­o­my think­ing and more sys­tem­at­ic data man­age­ment.  

“Progress is built step by step, togeth­er,” Jen­ni fin­ish­es.

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Source (text and image): Innokas