At Johnson & Johnson, we create and manufacture products that people around the world rely on everyday—everything from life changing medicines and medical devices to contact lenses and surgical equipment. We are committed to delivering the highest quality products for patients, doctors and customers, while also working to improve our environmental footprint.
Each of our business segments are taking action and driving improvements. Whether it’s making our packaging easier to recycle, supporting product take-back and recycling programs or integrating principles of green chemistry and technology into our pharmaceutical development process, we are committed to developing more sustainable products and solutions to support a healthier planet.
Closing the loop on medical devices
We work with partners on innovative solutions that improve the environmental footprint of the products we bring to the market, including the waste profile of products at end-of-life. For example, we know that about 30% of a hospital’s waste comes from their operating rooms, providing an important opportunity to advance more recycling and closed loop processes.
To help reduce medical waste, we are working with many leading hospitals in Europe and New Zealand to recycle disposable medical instruments designed for single use. The program allows hospitals to recycle metal and plastic components from certain J&J MedTech single use medical devices while digitally capturing and communicating the environmental impact of salvaging materials such as steel, titanium, aluminum, copper and chrome steel as well as a variety of plastics. It’s active in hospitals across several countries including Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, the UK, Austria, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand.
Expanding our pharmaceutical take-back Program
To benefit our pharmaceutical patients, our Safe Returns® program for home-administered immunology products allows patients to return their devices in a convenient and sustainable paper envelope. The program is available in the U.S., Switzerland, Norway, Ireland and Austria, with an aim to expand to additional countries and markets. In parallel, we are developing our capability to disassemble the collected devices from the Safe Returns® program to close the loop and reuse or recycle the materials and components, something that has not yet been fully achieved in the pharmaceutical industry.
Addressing digital health waste
The use of digital health devices is predicted to increase rapidly over the next five years, with expected annual global growth rates of almost 20% by 2027. This is great for patients, but it can leave an impact on our planet. Through the Digital Health in a Circular Economy (DiCE) collaborative, J&J Innovative Medicine is partnering with 20 other organizations to address this challenge. Together, we are looking at every point in the lifecycle of digital health devices to identify opportunities to extend the use or responsibly dispose of these products. DiCE received co-funding through the European Union’s Horizon Europe program.
Improving the footprint of our pharmaceuticals
J&J Innovative Medicine continues to integrate principles of green chemistry and technology into the development of our medicines. For example, our R&D team recently collaborated with a supplier to create a more efficient chemistry process to develop an ingredient in a treatment for major depressive disorder, which reduced raw materials consumption by close to half.
Integrating sustainable packaging
For example, we replaced the plastic trays in the secondary packaging used in many of our Immunology self-injectable device lines with a tray made of a fiber-based material. These trays are a significant breakthrough in pharmaceutical packaging, as they can be disposed of through regular cardboard recycling waste streams, available in most countries. First introduced in 2021 for our TREMFYA One Press line, we have expanded the use of these trays to approximately 30% of our currently launched self-injectable product lines. We aim to integrate fiber-based trays into more J&J Innovative Medicine Immunology self-injectable lines in the future.
In our J&J MedTech sector, DePuy Synthes replaced the virgin paperboard used in select SYNFIX® Evolution brand packaging to primarily post-consumer recycled paperboard (PCR). The new packaging went through extensive testing to confirm that it stands up to our stringent standards for sterility and structural integrity.
Caring for our patients and the planet
Through a partnership with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) Sustainable Development Unit and the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition, we helped to create world-first guidance on how to measure the carbon footprint of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and then shared the data and methodology for others to use.
Most often the environmental footprint associated with medical care comes from the full patient experience—from consultations with doctors, to time in the operating room, to post-operative recovery. This entire journey is called the patient care pathway, and we realized that if we could better understand it, we would be better equipped to help reduce the carbon footprint associated with our value chain. With The Sustainable Healthcare Coalition, we produced a case study to show that focusing on the entire care pathway can greatly reduce both the environmental impact and the cost of a patient’s care, while improving a patient’s overall experience.
Our partnerships and commitments for sustainable products and solutions
Johnson & Johnson is a founding member of the following organizations:
- The Sustainable Healthcare Coalition is a healthcare sector led group looking for the greatest opportunities to inspire sustainable practices in healthcare through the collaboration of its members.
- The Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council is working to advance plastics recyclability in healthcare.
- The American Chemistry Society’s (ACS) Green Chemistry Institute’s Pharmaceutical Roundtable (GCIPR) is dedicated to catalyzing the integration of green chemistry and engineering in the pharmaceutical industry.