Materials
UK NHS Evergreen Sustainable Supplier Assessment Exception
Requirement NHS
Supply Chain Frameworks
Suppliers on existing NHS Supply Chain Frameworks: Submission of the Evergreen Assessment is required.
New NHS Supply Chain Frameworks: Suppliers bidding to be on any future NHS Supply Chain Frameworks will be required to submit an Evergreen Assessment as part of the tendering process.
All NHS England Medicines tenders carried out by the
NHS England Medicines Tenders
Source: NHS England
After all, although it is oversimplifying it, there might only be 50 years left of fossil fuel supplies as we know them.
“If you’re building a company with longevity in mind, you have to become aware that fossil fuel solutions are going to become expensive,” Taylor advises. “We’ve got to move away, as it’s a finite resource,” he expands. “That timespan means children being born today are going to start to see the end of fossil fuel. When you see how reliant we are on it, that’s quite a scary thought. Moving forward, we’ve got to find alternative solutions, which is where things like bioplastics play a part.” Currently, you can pay green incentives or levies for bioplastics, making them slightly more expensive. But Taylor expects that when the industry progresses and especially as technology around them increases, this will come down in price.
Moving away does mean some challenges. For instance, Philips is careful not to compete with food production or farmland and evaluates its material sourcing to ensure responsible and ethical handling. Innovation is a core belief of Philips’, so if it encounters better solutions out there, it’s happy to switch, noting how a challenge in the industry is how quickly it can do so. Ultimately, Taylor thinks the move is a positive one. A major benefit he notes is that plastics can store carbon, so holding onto that resource is a good way of reusing carbon. Bio-based plastics can sequester biogenic carbon (captured during plant growth), but the climate benefit depends on product lifetime and end-of-life handling (recycling vs composting vs incineration).
Philips is also aiming to move away from more harmful substances as quickly as possible, such as PVC and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It’s open to anything industry-wide that comes to replace them, which could include working with the UK government or the rest of Europe.
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What’s next? Thomas and Taylor share high hopes for the future moving further towards carbon-neutral. Encouragingly, Thomas predicts the carbon-neutral industry’s future to be “very bright”. “It will lead to a transitioning to renewable energy, adopting of energy-efficient technologies and implementing of circular economy principles,” he says. However, he warns, there may be high costs: technological limitations, social and economic inequalities, and the complexities of international cooperation along the way. It’s also important to keep end users informed during the process, Thomas recommends. This could be done through user-friendly communication networks, with open data portals, interactive dashboards, public awareness campaigns, educational resources and stakeholder engagement. Broadly, Taylor wants to see greater recycling of plastics. This sounds a simple ask, but backing it up is another matter. Statistics from both the OECD and United Nations suggest that just 9% of plastics are currently recycled. Taylor also notes that the refurbished market is set to grow globally. Currently, it’s premature in the UK compared with wider Europe.
From a design perspective, refurbished equipment, including ultrasound machines, bears significantly lower carbon footprints than newer types. However, it looks and works the same, and will come with the same warranties. Refurbished equipment often has a lower carbon footprint than new units and can be ~20–30% cheaper than equivalent new systems.
“Everybody likes shiny toys, but if you can buy something that looks new, yet is cheaper and works the same, it seems a no-brainer,” concludes Taylor. So, the industry would do well to embrace aspects like this, and work towards a more carbon-neutral future, whatever its specific focus or country of origin. ●
www.medicaldevice-developments.com
Medicines Value and Access directorates will apply Net Zero and Social Value (building on PPN 06/20 – Social Value Model) by requiring submission of the Evergreen Assessment from January 2024.
Rationale
Historically, NHS Supply Chain has required suppliers to complete the Carbon Waste and Water Reduction Assessment
(CWW) on the NQC platform. CWW is replaced by the Evergreen Assessment to ensure alignment across the NHS and remove duplication for suppliers.
The mechanism through which medicines are procured does not allow for evaluation of tenders using the 10% net zero and social value weighting. Using the Evergreen Assessment as the implementation mechanism for Net Zero and Social Value in medicines tenders on an exceptional basis ensures that the policy is proportionate, aligned with the intent of the NHS Net Zero and Social Value approach and PPN 06/20.
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