ENKORE

ENKORE is a European project developing innovative eco-design solutions for single-use medical devices and sustainable packaging. It aims to establish an eco-design framework that facilitates the creation of sustainable medical devices and packaging without compromising patient safety or regulatory compliance. This is achieved through circular design, embedding sustainability across the entire product lifecycle.

ENKORE aims to accelerate innovation in healthcare packaging and single-use devices through an ecoDesign framework that ensures circularity, safety, and sustainability by design. This approach minimizes environmental impact, reduces carbon footprint, and optimizes resource use by considering the entire product lifecycle—from material selection to end-of-life disposal.

The project will develop methods and tools to assess product circularity and value capture at any stage, integrating Environmental and Social Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA/SLCA), a Circularity Calculator (CC), and a Digital Product Passport (DPP) to support informed decision-making in healthcare and industry.

Bringing together experts in materials, healthcare, regulation, and environmental assessment, ENKORE will establish a framework for sustainable procurement, waste management, and environmental monitoring in healthcare organizations.

The project will propose a set of evidence-based policy recommendations, guidelines, protocols, and tools for greening hospital devices and primary packaging material, tailored to different lead-users (practitioners, manufacturers, hospital managers), end-users (patients, healthcare providers) and decision-makers on macro- (national and supra-national), meso- (regional) and micro- (local) level.

Catalogues of Key Enabling Materials (KEM) & Key End-of-Cycle Solutions (KES)

Integrates sustainability principles into product design from the start.

Digital Product Passport

A tool for improving product traceability and facilitating recycling by centralising product information.

Environmental and Social Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA/SLCA)

Assess the sustainability impacts at every phase of the product lifecycle.

Objectives

Phase 1: Conceptualizing

1.1 To appraise high quality evidence and information for underpinning a robust, long-lasting, and scalable ENKORE ecoDesign framework.

1.2 Capture and elicit the requirements and needs of the different stakeholders to refine, plan and execute all the ENKORE use cases federating them in Reference Use Cases (RUC).

 

Phase 2: Modelling

2.1 To design and co-create a Key Enabling Materials (KEM) and Key End of Cycle Sustainable Solutions(KES) catalogue, as the main components that underpin the ENKORE SSbD-driven ecoDesign framework(SSbD, safe and sustainable by design).

2.2 To enable the design of eco-responsible packaging and single-use device framework that supports the development of KEM to KES and KES to KEM pathways.

 

Phase 3: Implementing

3.1 To facilitate the acquisition of tangible evidence and validate the implementation of the ecoDesign framework at the RUCs.

3.2 Enable packaging and device solution designers from multisectoral levels of the HealthTech industry with a DPP tool.

 

Phase 4. Testing and validating

4.1 To propel the shift toward the future of circular, SSbD packaging and single-use devices ecoDesigned solutions.

 

Phase 5: Outreaching and disseminating

 5.1 To positively influence standards and regulations and work in partnership on the acceptability,

applicability, and implementation of regulations on safe and sustainable packaging.

5.2 To increase regulators, standardization bodies, HCPs, patient associations, and citizens’ awarenessabout lifecycle assessed environmental impacts of packaging, devices solutions/health technologies and enable cultural change for moving towards circularity.

 

Partners

 

  1. UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID (UPM), Spain
  2. MEDTRONIC IBERICA SA (MEDTRONIC), Spain
  3. PREDICTBY RESEARCH AND CONSULTING S.L. (PBY), Spain
  4. UNIVERSITA CAMPUS BIO MEDICO DI ROMA (UCBM), Italy
  5. UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN (ULEI), Netherlands
  6. POLITECHNIKA POZNANSKA (PUT), Poland
  7. INSTITOYTO BIOIATPIKHE TEXNOLOGIAS (INBIT), Greece
  8. CHARITE – UNIVERSITAETSMEDIZIN BERLIN (CHARITE),Germany
  9. FONDAZIONE POLICLINICO UNIVERSITARIO CAMPUS BIO MEDICO (FPUCBM), Italy
  10. UNIVERSYTET MEDYCZNY W LODZI. (MUL), Poland
  11. CONSORCIO MAR PARC DE SALUT DE BARCELONA (IMIM), Spain
  12. TWI ELLAS ASTIKI MI KERDOSKOPIKI ETAIREIA (TWI), Greece
  13. FUNDACION UNIVERSIDAD FRANCISCO DE VITORIA (UFV), Spain
  14. SAMENWERKENDE TOPKLINISCHE OPLEIDINGSZIEKENHUIZEN (STZ), Netherlands
  15. OSAI AUTOMATION SYSTEM SPA SOCIETA’ BENEFIT (OSAI), Italy
  16. AGENZIA REGIONALE PER LA SALUTE ED IL SOCIALE (AReSS), Italy
  17. EUROPEAN REGIONAL AND LOCAL HEALTH AUTHORITIES ASBL (EUREGHA),Belgium
  18. NAUCNOISTRAZIVACKI INSTITUT VERLAB ZA BIOMEDICINSKI INZINJERING MEDICINSKE UREDAJE I VJESTACKU INTELIGENCIJU (VERLAB), Bosnia and Herzegovina
  19. ENOSI ASTHENON ELLADAS (GPA), Greece
  20. STERIMED HOLDING (STERIMED), France
  21. SERVICIO MADRILENO DE SALUD (SERMAS), Spain
  22. MULTIMED ENGINEERS SRL (MME), Italy
  23. IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS (FORTH), Greece
  24. HAPPY MONDAYS COMMUNICATION SL (HAPPY), Spain
  25. PFIZER INC (PFIZER INC),United States
  26. NOVO NORDISK A/S (NOVO), Denmark
  27. ELI LILLY AND COMPANY (ELI LILLY Co), United States
  28. JOHNSON & JOHNSON MEDICAL GMBH (JJM), Germany
  29. TAKEDA PHARMACEUTICALS INTERNATIONAL AG (TAKEDA), Switzerland
  30. FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE DEUTSCHLAND GMBH (FME), Germany
  31. DUPONT DE NEMOURS (LUXEMBOURG) SARL (DUPONT), Luxembourg
  32. BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM INTERNATIONALGMBH (BII), Germany
  33. INTERNATIONAL SOLID WASTE ASSOCIATION (ISWA), Netherlands
  34. FORUM DES PATIENTS EUROPEENS (EPF), Belgium
  35. BAXTER R AND D EUROPE (BAX), Belgium
  36. ACTIVE AGEING ASSOCIATION (ACT), Spain

Official website: https://enkoreecohealthcare.eu/