Philips, a global leader in medical technology, unveiled new measures to combat climate change in the framework of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties that took place in Glasgow from October 31 – November 12, 2021.
Philips wishes to reinforce its sustainable development program, which has already been in place for many years, by acting first of all upstream.
The supply chain is responsible for 71% of CO₂ emissions within the European Union.
Our suppliers are upstream of us because they are going to provide us with components, elements that we are going to assemble.
Downstream, Philips wants to work with hospitals that use its devices, particularly with regard to equipment usage.
In order to get a clear idea of the results of its efforts, Rennes University Hospital carried out a full carbon footprint in 2019-2020, covering the entire spectrum of its emissions including its own activity and the activity it generates elsewhere.
On this aspect, Rennes University Hospital made a commitment with Philips to jointly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the pieces of equipment that the university hospital buys from the company, namely for an interventional imaging room.
We thus deconstructed the entire lifecycle of this equipment from the search for raw materials through to the assembly of components, manufacturing, transport, delivery, use in the hospital and refurbishing.
The hospital found out that depending on how the room was used, there could be huge variations in the energy consumption, for example between equipment equipped with standby devices and equipment that can remain ready-to-use or in-activity.
“This could be a margin of progress because today’s reconstructed equipment has levels of performance that are quite equivalent to what you would find on the new market.
What do we do with this equipment afterwards? Either we don’t replace the machine completely but we upgrade it, that is to say that we change the software, we completely update the IT and old functionalities as well as the essential elements, and we keep the rest.