Completed projects

Green Design in Single Use Items: The Case of the Mediplast Vomit Bag

From July 2024 to August 2025, NCSH has partnered with Mediplast to develop a project aiming to contribute to sustainable development in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and medical technology products, using the case of Mediplast's vomit bag as a high impact single-use item.

The work was carried out as part of the Vinnova-funded project “Hållbar tillverkning av läkemedel och medicintekniska produkter – våren 2024” and the project included an LCA, a prototyping workshop with the participation of specialists, a feedback webinar with participation of users, and a feasibility study report which is now ready to be shared.

NCSH works with companies and healthcare actors to identify and develop greener solutions for products and processes, including single-use items with high environmental impact. If your organisation is interested in exploring similar work, you are welcome to get in touch.
For more information and interest in this project, please contact:

Diego Angelino – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Rita Oliveira - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Read the Feasibility Report here

Circle Health
Best practices of circular management models in healthcare: Capacity building among healthcare workers

From January 2023 to March 2024, NCSH was the lead of the project Circle Health. 

This was done in partnership with the Association of Non-Medical Healthcare Managers (SNKOZ) from Poland, with the support of the Erasmus+ fund in the category 'Small-scale partnerships in vocational education and training'.

Circle Health aimed to build competencies and green skills among healthcare workers in Sweden and Poland. The project systematised best practices in both countries, and created a tool kit for the development of circular management models for the healthcare sector. The priorities were to increase the flexibility of opportunities in vocational education and training, as well as to adapt vocational education and training to labour market needs.

In English: Read Circle Health's complete guidelines

In Polish: Read Circle Health's complete guidelines

Authors and editors of the guidelines: Diego Angelino (NCSH) and Marcin Kautsch (SNKOZ)

For more information and interest in this project, please contact:
Diego Angelino – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.                                                                                                                          

Circle Health is co-funded by the European Union.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those
of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).
Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Platform for Internationalisation: Energy and Climate Smart Healthcare

Through this project, a platform for internationalisation of sustainable and energy-efficient healthcare will be in place. A number of activities have been planned to:

- Create opportunities for energy efficient innovations to reach a global market
- Increase knowledge transfer and dissemination of information on energy efficient sustainable healthcare
- Identify methods and arenas where innovative companies within the field of sustainable healthcare can export sucessfully

The project is based on a prestudy where letters of intent have been written with innovation arenas in 4 countries: France, Italy, Israel and United Kingdom. A report on challenges when internationalising innovation clusters with focus on energy efficient healthcare has also been produced. Within this project, NCSH will focus on Europe as well as Canada, the U.S, China, India and the Middle East.

The project is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and started in December 2018. Also as a part of this project are the six international events arranged within the Future of Healthcare: Sustainable and Smart today project. These include: 

• Kick off and high level meeting in Helsinki, Finland the 2nd of October 2019. 
• Nordic delegation to conference in Montreal, Canada the 15th to the 16th of October 2019. 
• Conference for sustainable healthcare in the Netherlands the 15th to the 17th of April 2020. 
• Nordic Conference for Sustainable Healthcare in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 8 2020.
• Online seminar together with Yale University in November 2020. 
• Health100 and high level meeting in Finland 2020. 

Read more about the project

For more information about the project, please contact:

Daniel Eriksson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or +46 (0)707 94 42 13
Johannes Brundin, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or +46 (0)760 93 90 89

Closing gaps: Techniques and solutions for reducing pharmaceutical residuals in the Baltic Sea region

Since June 2022, NCSH is happy to participate in the project "Closing gaps: Techniques and solutions for reducing pharmaceutical residuals in the Baltic Sea region". Our participation is in partnership with Scanbalt from Estonia and the Lithuanian Biotechnology Association, and in collaboration with Business Region Göteborg.

Together, the partners in this project will implement a multistakeholder horizontal collaboration. We will share and compare techniques and conditions for using innovative solutions – solutions that have the possibility of reducing pharmaceutical residual within the healthcare sector among the Baltic Sea countries.

The project is funded by the Swedish Institute.

Do you have or know of a solution which reduces pharmaceutical residuals in healthcare waste? Tell us about it!

For more information and interest in this project, please contact:

Caroline Charlier                                                                                                                                  
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.                                                                                                                            

SysteMA

During 2022, NCSH took part in SysteMA (Systemic Design and Sustainable Healthcare for MedTech Manufacturing). SysteMA is an educational project seeking to address the training challenges of sustainable healthcare for the European MedTech industry. The project is funded by EIT Manufacturing.

Read more about the project here.

SysteMA is an international partnership including NCSH's partner Politecnico di Torino, along with many other organisations. 

For more information and interest in this project, please contact:

Hjalmar Bardh Olsson
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The Nordic Conference on Sustainable Healthcare 2019

The Nordic Conference on Sustainable Healthcare 2019 was held as a part of EHMA:s annual conference and took place in Espoo Finland on June 17th-19th. NCSH hosted one session on June 17th and one session on June 18th. On June 19th the winners of 2019 Nordic Sustainable Healthcare awards were announced. This year Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) won the award Sustainable Healthcare Organizer of the year, Schneider Electric was awarded the Sustainable Healthcare Organisation of the year, and finally the Sustainable Healthcare Innovation of the year went to Nordshield. 

Read more

The Nordic Conference on Sustainable Healthcare 2018

The Nordic Conference on Sustainable Healthcare 2018 was held in collaboration with Aktuell Hållbarhet and joined together speakers and participants from over 10 countries with an interest in creating a more sustainable healthcare. This years focus was on areas such as tools for sustainable construction and maintenance of healthcare buildings, international knowledge from sustainable health and care systems, procurement as a sustainability tool and antibiotic resistance.

Read more on topics and speakers

The Nordic Conference on Sustainable Healthcare 2017

In collaboration with Aktuell Hållbarhet, Dagens Medicin and Bonnier Sustainability Media, Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare organised a one day conference with speakers from all over Europe to focus on the latest developments in areas such as: sustainability priorities at major Nordic hospitals, state of the art Nordic projects, as well as new and innovative solutions on the market in everything from energy efficiency to pharmaceuticals.

Read more on topics and speakers

CleanMed Europe 2012

TEM took the initiative for the international conference CleanMed Europe 2012 and acted as a project leader throughout the conference held in Malmö, with 350 participants from over 30 countries.

HUSCA - Boosting sustainable innovation with Nordic integrated health data

Together with a Nordic consortia we are focusing on sustainable healthcare innovation in relation to SDGs, Nordic integrated health data, healthcare providers, life science industry and other related industries. 

Together, we will envisioning what an innovative and connected Nordic region would look like if health data was shared seamlessly across public-private partnerships in the region. Shared health data plays into the circular economy, as well as clinical research, clinical trials, treatments, innovation- and development efforts means reduced friction and higher degrees of utilisation of expended resources.

For more information and interest in this project please contact:

Daniel Eriksson
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sWASH & Grow

NCSH is taking part in this new project called sWASH and Grow, financed by Vinnova and under the lead of RISE. This project is focusing on humanitarian crisis and conflicts and providing sustainable and circular of-grid WASH-solutions (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene). The SWASH & Grow project aims to improve the condition for Swedish innovative solutions to meet the demands of the customers - aid organizations. The project will, through test beds in cooperation with buyers and users, test innovative sustainable solutions and from this design tools for development, scaling and export. The Project consists of 27 partners and will be running until august 2022. Through its members, NCSH can provide both technical solutions, knowledge and business models for the project.

For more information and interest in this project please contact:

Johannes Brundin
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Nordic Strategic Platform for Increased Export of Sustainable Healthcare Solutions

NCSH is one of around 15 members in the Nordic Innovation task force for export of health and welfare solutions. The project is an initiative by the Nordic Ministry Council and aims to unite and increase Nordic export of health-related services and products. Around three organisations from each member country (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland) represent different areas of health export and NCSH is added as a pan-Nordic actor.

Sustainable healthcare has been identified as one of four Nordic strongholds within Nordic health export together with Smart Digital Solutions, Welfare technology and Personalized care.This means that members in NCSH can look forward to increased efforts to expand the area of sustainable healthcare and projects that supports those efforts.

A first report from the task force has been published in 2018 and can be found here.

The Future of Healthcare - Sustainable and Smart today

Together with our project partners Upgraded and DTU Executive School of Education, NCSH has recieved funding from Nordic Innovation for targeting Nordic sustainable healthcare. The aim is to bring Nordic knowledge and solutions for sustainable healthcare to a global market. Through this, knowledge and expertise on sustainable solutions in this sector can be spread and developed further. The base of the project is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, and with additional funding from Nordic Innovation the project expands adding a Nordic perspective. The project will run for 1,5 years. 

The outputs of this project is a number of international events with the aim to spread knowledge on Nordic sustainable solutions. In total six events will be conducted in five different countries around the world: 

• Helsinki, Finland October 2, 2019: Kick-off of project and high level meeting with 100 of the most impactful people in Nordic healhtcare. 
• Montreal, Canada October 15-16, 2019: Delegation to Canada to meet Canadian hospitals interested in sustainable and smart healthcare. 
• Netherlands, April 21, 2020: Conference with Dutch and Nordic actors to share knowledge, expertise and best practices in the field of sustainable healhtcare. 
• Copenhagen, Denmark, September 8, 2020: Nordic Conference for Sustainable Healthcare, hosted by DTU. 
• Yale University, USA, November 10, 2020: Online seminar arranged together with Yale University.
• Finland October 2020: Final event to wrap up the project and high level meeting with Nordic stakeholders in healthcare. 

For more information about the project, please contact: 

Daniel Eriksson 
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The most Sustainable Healthcare in the World 2030

Together with project partners Medeon, Medicon Village, Swecare and Sahlgrenska Science Park, NCSH received Vinnova funding for a pre-study to be the basis for creating a vision to achieve the most sustainable healthcare in the world by 2030 and establish an arena for innovation, collaboration and communication of Swedish sustainable healthcare.

The outputs of this project has lead to a more coherent view on sustainable healthcare and further clarified this interdisciplinary matter. The result will in the long run lead to increased export and reduced environmental impact from the healthcare sector. In order to fully encompass all aspects of sustainable healthcare, MedTech and life science have been addressed and included in the project.

To increase the knowledge base and identify best practice solutions within MedTech and life science, workshops have been held in four different cities in Sweden. The material collected through the workshops have been used to develop both a sustainability guideline for startups within life sciences, as well as a vision for sustainable healthcare.

Guideline - Sustainability in Life Science

The content of the guidline has been developed in collaboration with Medeon, Medicon Village, Sahlgrenska Science Park, Swecare and participants at 5 workshops around Sweden hosted by the projects partners and Innovation+ in Region Västerbotten. A number of interviews have been conducted with companies and other key stakeholders. In total a couple of hundred organisations have been involved in the process.

• The guideline can be found here >>
• References to legislation and other more specific guidelines can be found here >>
• Best practices from some Swedish Life Science companies can be found here >>

For more information, please contact:

Daniel Eriksson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or +46 707-94 42 13

Nordic White Paper on Sustainable Healthcare

In 2019 NCSH completed a Nordic white paper on sustainable healthcare, a project funded by Nordic Innovation. During the project events and workshops have been arranged around the Nordics. The following activites have been arranged within the project: 

• Sweden: 15th of February 2018, Nordic Conference on Sustainable Healthcare.  
• Iceland: 17th of April 2018, joint workshop with partners.
• Finland: 31st of May 2018, session on Upgraded Life Festival.
• Sweden: 3rd of October 2018, workshop in collaboration with Swecare.
• Denmark: 1st of November 2018, workshop in collaboration with DTU.
• Norway:  29th of January 2019, workshop in collaboration with Nordic Innovation.

You can read the White Paper here >>>

For more information, please contact us:

Daniel Eriksson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or +46 (0)707-94 42 13

Joint Nordic Events - Healthcare as a Leverage for Smarter and Greener Cities

With funding from Nordic Innovation NCSH, together with Nordic and Israeli partners, organised a delegation/matchmaking event in Tel Aviv the 14th to the 15th of November 2018. The purpose of the delegation was to increase business, knowledge and collaboration on solutions for sustainable healthcare and smart, circular cities.

Read a summary from the delegation (link to Nordic Innovation)

For more information, please contact:

Daniel Eriksson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or +46 707 94 42 13