Sustainable medical device design extends far beyond recyclability. Through careful design decisions, it is possible to significantly reduce the environmental impact of development and manufacture long before a product or device reaches the end of its life

HD offers a range of sustainability-focused services, from design for the circular economy through to product sustainability reports. 

HD designs and engineers new products and medical devices to perform effectively while remaining responsible from an environmental standpoint. Throughout each project, we consider materials, processes, and their potential impact, discussing these factors with clients so they can make informed decisions and reduce the environmental impact of their own products and operations. 

By working with HD, you can draw on our ethos of reducing the environmental impact of development and manufacturing through careful material selection, efficient processes, and industrial partners that help minimise waste across both the product and its packaging. Our design and engineering team has expertise across numerous areas of sustainable design, supported by a wider network of specialists who can assist clients throughout the development and manufacturing process. 

Whether you want to improve the sustainability of an existing product or develop a novel device, we have the knowledge and experience to guide your development towards a lower environmental impact.

Design sustainability services we offer include:

Product Portfolio Strategy | We can help map out your future product development roadmap across your product portfolio, including opportunities to address potential environmental or usability issues that future products may create. 

Product Design Brief / Specification Verification | We can help you develop a thorough, welldefined product design brief and/or specification that considers not only whether something can be done, but whether it should be done.

Product Concept Judgement Evaluation | We can help evaluate product concepts using a systematic quantitative approach, assessing the advantages and disadvantages of each concept design from technical, commercial, and environmental perspectives.

Life Cycle Analysis | We can conduct life cycle analysis of existing products, or products close to market release, to understand their environmental impact across material extraction, refinement, processing, manufacturing, assembly, distribution, packaging, use, waste, recycling, and feedback mechanisms.

Environmental Impact 99 (EI99) Evaluation | We can support you throughout the product development process by evaluating the product’s environmental impact, identifying highrisk areas, and implementing technical and commercial corrective actions to mitigate environmental risk before your product reaches market.

End-of-Life Product Waste Management | We can support the development of programmes that control how your product is disposed of appropriately, whether through trade-back services, consumer instructions, or other end-of-life routes designed to reduce non-circular waste.

Appropriate Material Selection | We can draw on our internal materials expertise and extensive network of external material development engineers and scientists to define performance specifications for each part and support the selection of appropriate materials. 

Design for Longevity and Robustness | We can help ensure your product is fit for real-world use by designing with longevity and robustness in mind. Using our internal finite element analysis expertise, we can digitally assess whether parts are able to withstand drop tests, strengthen elements and linkages where needed, and reduce material thickness where appropriate before a single part is made.

Packaging Analysis | We can review your existing packaging design, assessing material use, processing requirements, product protection, producttopackaging density, and overall environmental impact.

 

Product Teardown Analysis | We can conduct product teardowns of your products, or competitor products, to independently evaluate the energy and material requirements of each part and understand the processes required to produce the product.

Eco-Passports | We can produce Eco-Passports: concise, customer-facing datasheets that communicate a product’s environmental impact, identify the recyclable materials used, and explain what your company has done to reduce its environmental impact. 

Procurement Evaluation | We can work with your internal procurement team to map the realistic environmental impact of each part using real-world data, including where parts are made, where the components used to make those parts are sourced, and how far upstream the supply chain impact extends.

Product Environmental Reports | We can produce a thorough product environmental report using several of the tools listed above, creating a clear record of the research and development activities undertaken to reduce the risk of product environmental impact.

Mark Heynes - Medical Device Design Director at Haughton Design Mark Heynes Design Director

Get in Touch with Mark Heynes

Mark ensures that projects are delivered on time and are suitably resourced to guarantee quality of output. Mark is heavily involved in our design services, having a wealth of experience in healthcare devices, trainer devices, IVD’s, and inhalation. ​

Mark holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Product Design along with 20 years’ experience working on a wide range of design projects. 

Our Latest Thinking & Work in Sustainable Design

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