Episode 079 | March 11, 2024 | 32:49
Guest: Clare Brooke (Boston Scientific)
Published: March 11, 2024
Duration: 32:49
Description
Join Clare Brooke, Sustainability Lead for the EMEA region at Boston Scientific, as she discusses the healthcare industry’s role in addressing climate change and sustainability. Discover how healthcare can be part of the solution, the impact of the industry on emissions, and Boston Scientific’s commitment. Insights into regulatory changes, the commercial landscape, and innovations Boston Scientific has made to reduce emissions and waste.
Full transcript
About this transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain inaccuracies, typos, or mistranslations. Episodes recorded before 2024 were transcribed by an on-site model and may have a higher error rate. The content reflects the original conversation to the best of our ability. For the authoritative version, please listen to the audio episode.
Joachim: Welcome to the Sustainable Healthcare Podcast, Clare. You and I always have wonderful conversations about sustainability in healthcare and medtech.
Clare Brooke: Hi. I’m Sustainability Lead for the EMEA region at Boston Scientific, a global medical devices company. I came to sustainability through a long commercial career — I always cared about it personally and at some point realised I could bring that into my professional life. Started attending courses and pushing internally. The role I’m in now didn’t exist a few years ago.
On healthcare as part of the climate problem AND solution: healthcare globally is responsible for somewhere around 4-5% of global emissions. If it were a country it would be the fifth largest emitter. But it’s also a sector full of mission-driven people who genuinely want to help — that’s a huge asset for change.
Boston Scientific’s commitments: Science-Based Targets aligned with the Paris Agreement. Manufacturing sites moving toward renewable electricity. Carbon-neutral operations targets set. Big focus on Scope 3 — supply chain and the use phase of products.
Regulatory landscape: the NHS is leading with the supplier roadmap — by 2027 suppliers need carbon reduction plans aligned with the Paris Agreement; by 2030 product-level carbon footprints. EU CSRD coming in. Other countries (Nordics, Australia, Canada) following. Suppliers cannot ignore this — it’s procurement criteria, not philanthropy.
Commercial landscape: tender requests for sustainability information have increased dramatically — Boston Scientific estimates threefold over the last year. Sustainability weighting in tenders is rising, especially in Nordic countries. Norway requires 30% weighting for sustainability in public tenders. The commercial team has to become conversational on sustainability — this is now a sales conversation, not just a corporate report.
Innovations and changes: Reducing packaging — instructions for use moving from paper to electronic where regulation allows (paper IFUs are still required in the EU). Reusable shipping containers for cold-chain. Working with the reprocessing industry — collecting single-use devices where regulatorily allowed for reprocessing. Manufacturing electrification — replacing gas boilers with electric, on-site solar, energy efficiency. Looking at product redesign for circular economy — but medical-device product cycles are long (a decade from concept to market release plus approval) so changes take time.
The pathway perspective: our product is one part of a patient care pathway. Sometimes a more effective product means fewer hospital visits, fewer patient trips, less hospital bed-days — all of which dominate the carbon footprint. A simple per-product LCA can miss this. The conversation we need with healthcare providers is “how does our product enable you to decarbonise your scope 3” not just “is our product LCA lower than another’s.”
Working with the wider commercial organization: different parts of the business are at different points in the journey. Some teams get a lot of questions and feel overwhelmed; others have not yet felt the impact. Don’t expect everyone to be a subject-matter expert — develop competency so people can have the conversation confidently. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. None of us know everything; this is a constant learning journey.
Engaging consultancies: when starting out, you don’t necessarily have a sustainability strategy or know what good looks like. Having an external perspective helps — bigger picture, deep-dive suggestions, structured CSRD reporting support. Look for the right cultural fit; trust matters because you’ll be sharing vulnerabilities. And you have to be willing to take the advice and actually implement, not treat it as a tick-box exercise.
Joachim: Don’t do it to people, do it with them. End goal is to build internal capability.
Clare: Final advice: collaborate, co-create. Sustainability folks inside an organization are sometimes seen as having a vested interest. By partnering with the commercial organization and making sure their voice is heard in your proposals, sustainability becomes a partner, not a separate vested-interest function. You’ve got to be a partner to your business.
Joachim: If you’re leading sustainability change, often you want to be the one asking questions rather than coming with answers. Flip it around: “what would you do if this was a quality question? Why is this important to you? Do you stand to lose business on this?”
Thank you Clare. Thanks to all our listeners — please subscribe and share.