Technical articles

Eco-design for Medical Devices: An Opportunity for Differentiation

29/05/2026

Since 2021, companies in the medical device (MD) and in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) sectors have launched their first decarbonisation initiatives, with a further quarter of MD and IVD companies launching initiatives in 2024 [1]. Eco-design, including carbon-footprint reduction, is steadily emerging as a genuine driver of business growth rather than a peripheral “green” concern. By applying a structured approach, manufacturers can simultaneously reduce environmental impacts, secure market access, win tenders, and develop new business models.

1. Why eco-design is now a strategic priority

Eco-design focuses on reducing a product’s environmental footprint across its entire lifecycle, from raw-material extraction to end-of-life. For MDs and IVDs, this can mean choosing lower-impact materials and manufacturing processes, optimizing logistics, and designing products that are more durable, repairable, and recyclable – all without compromising clinical performance or patient safety.

Several elements have turned eco-design into an economic imperative for MD manufacturers:

Escalating European and French regulations on product eco-design
France’s ambitious decarbonisation roadmap for the healthcare sector
Increasing demand from buyers (university hospitals, hospital groups, private clinics, large private operators) who are adding environmental and social criteria to their tenders
Rising materials and energy costs, which make every gram, kilowatt-hour, and shipment critical to profitability

The ADEME 2025 Eco-design Barometer [2] underscores the advantages of eco-design considerations. Companies that embrace eco-design report clear economic gains: enhanced brand reputation, accelerated innovation and differentiation, and stronger stakeholder relationships.

Moreover, employees say they feel more proud of their work, boosting talent attraction and retention, which is an invaluable advantage in a sector facing acute skills shortages in both healthcare and regulatory roles.

2. A Regulatory and Strategic Landscape Rich in Opportunity

Embedding sustainability into healthcare products requires full alignment with existing regulations and, above all, preservation of the medical benefit–risk balance. In this context, what is often seen as a compliance cost becomes a genuine source of competitive advantage for companies that anticipate requirements. In the MD sector, three regulatory pillars shape this opportunity: (1) product-specific legislation, (2) France’s healthcare and ecological-transition policies, and (3) increasingly stringent packaging requirements.

2.1 European Regulations and the Environment

Regulation (EU) 2017/745 (MDR, Medical Device Regulation) contains no dedicated eco-design chapter, yet many provisions support the same goal. Key points include:

General safety and performance requirements (GSPR) covering hazardous substances and chemical risks (e.g., DEHP-plasticized PVC, phthalates).
A mandatory benefit–risk analysis that favors safer, more sustainable alternatives when available.
Obligations to consider product lifetime, reliability, maintenance, and end-of-life impacts.

Manufacturers already working on phasing out substances of concern, boosting durability, and enabling repairability are better prepared for future rule changes and less likely to face product withdrawals or costly compliance retrofits.

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR, Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation) sets a horizontal framework for eco-design requirements across product categories, covering environmental performance and information disclosure. Although MDs are absent from the regulation’s first set of priorities, they remain subject to future inclusion; delegated acts are likely to bring the sector within its scope after 2030.

2.2 AGEC Law and Sharp or Perforating Medical Devices

France’s Anti-Waste and Circular Economy Act (AGEC, Anti-Gaspillage pour une Economie Circulaire), enacted on 10 February 2020, established new rules for managing waste from sharp/perforating MDs used by self-treating patients (ie. Auto-injection pens). These devices, which may pierce, cut, or slice, must be collected and processed according to procedures set by the eco-organisation DASTRI.

Decree No. 2021-1176 of 10 September 2021 broadened the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme to cover certain electrical and electronic equipment associated with these devices. DASTRI has set a 70% recycling target for this waste stream by 2027 [3], making early incorporation of eco-design principles essential for these products.

2.3 French Health Policy and the Ecological Transition

France’s ecological action plan for healthcare, and more specifically its focus on “eco-responsible care”, is accelerating in response to evidence of the sector’s substantial greenhouse-gas footprint. Recent studies estimate that MDs and IVDs together emit around 7.4 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent each year, a level comparable to the entire French agri-food industry [4]. This finding has prompted several targeted measures:

National “eco-responsible care” programmes (eco-care) that set explicit goals for waste reduction, energy efficiency, responsible purchasing, and the development of more sustainable MDs [5].
The France 2030 call for projects, “Environment-Friendly Medical Devices and Sterilization,” which funds solutions that are leaner in resource use, reusable, recyclable, or rely on lower-impact sterilization processes [6].

Together, these measures provide funding windows, showcase pilot initiatives, and deliver a clear message to manufacturers: sustainability has become a strategic priority for both industrial policy and hospital procurement in France.

2.4 Sustainable Hospital Purchasing

France’s Climate and Resilience Act of 22 August 2021 makes it compulsory to factor environmental considerations into every stage of all public-procurement contracts, including those issued by public hospitals. From mid-2026, social criteria will also be mandatory for contracts exceeding EU thresholds.

This requirement aligns with Objective No. 2 of the “Ecological Planning for the Health System” roadmap: to “Accelerate and promote the transition to sustainable purchasing, especially for health products, by 2030.” The aim is to turn public procurement into a key driver of the ecological transition.

To support this shift, the C2DS (Committee for Sustainable Development in Health) and Snitem (French Medical Technology Industry Association) have created the “Sustainable MD Index,” an eco-score for MDs that rates both product environmental performance and manufacturers’ social practices [7]. Developed in 2025 with input from buyers and industry, the index is intended to steer purchasing decisions.

In this context, suppliers that can provide solid, data-backed evidence of lifecycle impact reductions together with strong social policies at their production sites, will hold a decisive advantage in future tenders.

2.5 Reduced and Eco-designed Packaging

Ecodesign now extends to packaging. Under France’s AGEC law, all manufacturers supplying the professional market must join a new EPR scheme for professional packaging as of 1 July 2026, whatever their sector [3]. For MD manufacturers, this means:

integrating ecodesign into packaging development,
setting reuse and recycling targets for sales, grouping, and transport packaging, and
declaring annually the number of packaging units placed on the market (first report due by 29 May 2026 for 2025 data) to ADEME’s National Observatory for Re-use and Re-utilization or via an approved collective organisation.

Under Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste, the EU is also mandating a decrease in single-use plastic packaging. Starting in 2030, manufacturers will be charged an eco-contribution for every package used at the point of sale, encouraging the adoption of recyclable and reusable solutions. Additional packaging obligations specific to MDs will not apply until 2035, giving this industry more time than others to comply.

3.0 Business Development Opportunities

Strict regulations can lead to growth opportunities for MD manufacturers, helping them cut costs, expand and protect market access, develop new business models, and enhance both innovation and brand reputation.

3.1 Cost savings across the entire life cycle

Eco-design is not a costly “green add-on”. When implemented properly, it can deliver substantial savings [8], improve supply-chain resilience, and lower carbon emissions. In the MD sector, the main levers [9] are:

Material reduction (weight, complexity, and over-specification): less resin, fewer critical metals, and fewer components can lower material and transport costs.
Process optimization (energy use, material yield, consolidation of steps): this enables reduced energy bills and less waste.
Improved logistics (more compact packaging, optimized pallets, design products for easy disassembly): this enables fewer shipments, less breakage, and lower loss rates.

To illustrate the above, one may consider the following example: A manufacturer of single-use surgical kits found that several accessories were routinely discarded unused. By redesigning the kit around actual clinical practice, the company cut material usage, packaging volume, and preparation time, thus reducing unit costs and waste. Hospitals also benefited from lower procurement expenses [10].

3.2 Opening up new markets and gaining an edge in tenders
Even though sustainability criteria are not yet formally weighted, companies that demonstrate strong environmental performance can score extra points in both public and private tenders. Key differentiators that help manufacturers set themselves apart include:

Recognized environmental or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) credentials: an established eco-score (e.g., the Sustainable MD Index) or respected labels such as Engagé RSE, Label Lucie 26000, B Corp, or Positive Company.
Independently reviewed lifecycle assessments (LCAs) that prove the product’s reduced environmental footprint due to eco-design.
Comprehensive programmes for taking back and responsibly processing devices at end of life.

Signals from the France 2030 plan and responsible public-procurement policies point to rising demand for reusable, refurbished, and eco-designed devices. Manufacturers that invest now in innovative, sterilization-ready technologies, such as cold-plasma or super-critical CO₂ systems, can secure valuable positions in emerging market segments.

3.3 New business models: shifting from product sales to service solutions

Eco-design paves the way for circular business models in which a company no longer sells just a MD, but also the underlying care or diagnostic function. A few possible trajectories include:

Long-term leasing of imaging equipment under performance-based contracts that guarantee energy efficiency and uptime, with modular upgrades instead of full replacements.
Formal refurbishment programmes for instruments and accessories, supplying renewed items with full warranties and traceability as part of integrated service contracts.
All-inclusive “product-as-a-service” solutions: provide the device, manage its return at end of life, recover materials or energy, and deliver comprehensive environmental reporting (often referred to as the “functional and cooperative economy”).

These models create steadier revenue, deepen customer loyalty, and help amortise the R&D effort needed for environmental impact reduction.

3.4 Brand image, market appeal, and investor alignment

Today, investors, insurers, and major purchasers routinely factor Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance into their decisions. French banks already rank among the world’s top ten providers of green and sustainability-linked loans [11].

A robust, well-documented eco-design approach, backed by transparent impact metrics, strengthens a company’s credibility, highlights its capacity to innovate, and makes it easier to secure funding.

4.0 Concrete examples from the medical-device sector

Below are a few real-world cases, drawn from manufacturers’ feedback and from work carried out by government ministries and industry bodies.

4.1 Medical imaging: extending service life and cutting energy use

Companies such as Philips and GE HealthCare have placed eco-design at the center of how they develop and manage imaging systems, including MRI scanners, CT scanners, and more [12][13]. Their main levers include:

Lowering energy consumption in both standby and operating modes by optimizing power electronics, cooling, and software algorithms.
Building modular, upgradable platforms that can be refreshed with new components instead of replacing the entire system.
Refurbishing major sub-assemblies and reselling fully warranted, factory-reconditioned equipment.

From a business standpoint, these strategies allow manufacturers to:

Offer tiered solutions, supplying top-grade refurbished systems to budget-constrained hospitals as an attractive alternative to low-spec new equipment.
Reduce healthcare facilities’ overall cost of ownership by cutting energy consumption, maintenance requirements, and downtime.
Capitalize on strong sustainability credentials to boost competitiveness in innovation-oriented grants and tenders, including France 2030 and regional programs.

4.2 Single-Use Medical Devices: Eco-Design under Pressure

Single-use MDs present a significant challenge: their market is growing steadily while generating substantial waste. Sharp, perforating devices such as auto-injection pens alone account for almost 1,300 tonnes of waste each year [3]. Several eco-design strategies, however, can deliver real environmental and financial benefits:

Rethinking procedural kits to match real-world practice can eliminate unnecessary accessories and consolidate items shared across similar procedures.
Whenever safety permits, manufacturers should substitute problematic plastics or additives with more sustainable alternatives, without compromising device performance.
Making products lighter and more compact can slash transport and storage costs.

Where regulations allow and safety can be guaranteed, transitioning to well-engineered reusable devices that are designed and built for easy cleaning, compatible with standard sterilization, and designed for simple disassembly, can yield substantial long-term savings for healthcare providers. For manufacturers, this transition opens new opportunities to sell integrated solutions that bundle the device with sterilization, traceability, and environmental-impact reporting, creating additional revenue streams while supporting sustainability goals.

4.3 Regional ecosystems and the circular economy

Feedback from hospitals and manufacturers highlights how crucial local collaboration is for turning medical-waste streams into new resources. When MDs are eco-designed with regional loops in mind, they can tap into:

Nearby recycling facilities that accept specific plastics, metals, and packaging,
Reuse or refurbishment programmes coordinated across hospital networks,
Partnerships with social-enterprise organisations for collection, sorting, and other reverse-logistics tasks.

Manufacturers that build devices for easy disassembly, clear labelling, and material separation and that can bundle effective take-back and recycling services, stand to gain new business opportunities in these emerging circular-economy value chains.

5.0 Building a Profitable Eco-Design Strategy

To turn a smart idea into measurable financial returns, manufacturers must treat eco-design as a strategic project complete with clear objectives, dedicated resources, and active oversight. Industry feedback highlights several success factors, described below.

5.1 Start with real-world impacts

The first step is to identify where the device truly affects the environment across its lifecycle. A Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) can help map the main contributors: raw materials, manufacturing, transport, use (energy, consumables), and end-of-life processing.

A quantitative approach steers teams away from low-impact tweaks and toward changes that deliver meaningful environmental and economic benefits. For example, if a device consumes high amounts of energy in use, investing in energy-efficiency will pay back far more than fine-tuning the packaging.

This impact analysis should align with emerging sustainable-procurement frameworks that emphasize “eco-responsible care” [14]. The goal is to provide high-quality, safe, and clinically relevant treatment while reducing the environmental footprint. These practices span economic and social considerations and encompass both clinical procedures and care delivery, whether in community clinics, hospitals, or long-term care facilities. Expected gains include lower health-sector carbon emissions, reduced pollution (e.g., water contamination and toxic exposures), and managing the energy and ecological footprint of care, ultimately moving toward more resource-efficient healthcare.

5.2 Co-design with key stakeholders

Eco-design workshops that bring together internal teams, including procurement, engineering, quality, regulatory, marketing, and sales, alongside external partners such as suppliers and end users (physicians, nurses, biomedical engineers, patients) are especially effective. These sessions allow to:

Generate ideas that reconcile clinical and regulatory requirements with environmental goals and real-world use.
Identify service innovations in maintenance, refurbishment, and training that complement product improvements.

Each proposed solution is then documented in a concise brief that outlines the concept, the expected drop in major environmental impacts, implementation costs, associated risks, and a deployment plan. This structured approach supports clear investment decisions and provides the evidence needed to demonstrate regulatory compliance.

5.3 Manage with clear environment, cost, and market impact metrics

A profitable eco-design initiative needs a common scorecard tracked by R&D, finance, sales, and senior management. At a minimum, manufacturers must monitor:

Environmental indicators: carbon footprint, raw-material use, waste volumes, and reductions in hazardous substances.
Financial indicators: material, production, and logistics costs; end-of-life expenses for customers; and savings from avoided non-compliance.
Market indicators: tender win rates where environmental criteria count, share of new segments captured (reusable, refurbished, service-based), and gains in brand value.

ADEME barometers show that companies consistently tracking these metrics are the ones most likely to turn eco-design into a lasting competitive advantage.

6.0 Conclusion: A Competitive Edge for Early Movers

For MD manufacturers, eco-design is no longer just a moral obligation or regulatory box-ticking exercise; it is now a powerful driver of differentiation, cost savings, and innovative business models. As France and the EU advance their agendas for eco-responsible care and healthcare decarbonisation, companies that adopt eco-design practices are supported by public policy, favored in hospital procurement, aligned with the expectations of clinicians and patients, and attractive to investors.

By anchoring their programmes in rigorous methods such as LCA, collaborative design with stakeholders, and performance dashboards that track environmental, financial, and market metrics, these pioneers are turning regulatory pressure into opportunity. In the process, they are helping to build a more resilient, sustainable, and competitive healthcare system for the future.

Need assistance?

At Efor, we guide our clients through today’s complex regulatory landscape. We provide:

Tailor-made training in eco-design and the circular economy (NF X30-264 standard, industry best practices).
Strategic support to build and roll out an eco-design roadmap fully integrated with your innovation and R&D processes.
Gap analyses and audits of your products and documentation to identify impact-reduction levers and lifecycle optimization opportunities.
Regulatory monitoring and compliance assistance (ESPR, PPWR, France’s AGEC law, responsible public-procurement criteria, ISO 13485/14001, and more).
Specialist expertise in packaging qualification and validation.

Let’s discuss your next project: solutionprojectdelivery@efor-group.com

SOURCES

[1] Conseil National de l’Industrie mars 2026, feuille de route des produits de santé

[2] ADEME novembre 2025, Baromètre de l’écoconception 2025

[3] Observatoire des filières REP

[4] The Shift Project mai 2025, Décarbonons les industries des DM (Synthèse)

[5] Achats-durables.gouv.fr octobre 2024, Accélérer la transition vers des pratiques d’achats plus durables : le secteur de la santé, des produits de soin et du social

[6] Bpifrance octobre 2025, Appel à projets Grands Défis « Soutenir l’Innovation dans la Stérilisation et la Conception de DM Respectueux de l’Environnement »

[7] www.snitem.fr, L’Index DM Durable (IDMD) : un outil pour intégrer la RSE dans l’achat de dispositifs médicaux. ; AFNOR SPEC 2313[8] lemarche.inclusion.gouv.fr, Analyse du coût du cycle de vie dans les achats : une approche durable et économique

[9] L’écoconception des produits – notre-environnement

[10] ANAP 2025, Premier référentiel national pour un bloc éco-responsable

[11] Fédération bancaire française mai 2025, Les banques françaises leaders du financement de la transition écologique