Azaro Fundazioa will lead the new European Healcier project, which aims to improve the competitiveness of the health care value chain by implementing the principles of the circular economy, together with 4 other partners: Biocruces Bizkaia Institute for Health Research, Navarrabiomed, AIN (Navarre Industry Association) and ESTIA (Ecole Supérieure des Technologies Industrielles Advanced). In addition to the partners, Ezkerraldea Encartaciones Cruces ESI and the Hospital de Navarra will have a close collaboration with the project.

Healcier is a European cross-border cooperation project funded 65% by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg Poctefa program and will run for one year.

Health sector and resource consumption

Aging in the cross-border area has put a lot of pressure on the health system, increasing the demand for the service, both in terms of quantity and quality. Rising demand is also putting pressure on the sector, leading to increased resource use.

As a result, the health sector is one of the most resource-intensive sectors (water, energy, food, raw materials, finished products, etc.) and has a major impact on environmental sustainability. In addition, the general use of single-use products generates a large amount of waste: gloves, syringes, radioactive waste, unused drugs, unnecessary testing or treatment, maintenance of devices, etc.

A large hospital in numbers

To give you an idea, the average annual heat, electricity and gas consumption of a large hospital is over 50 million kWh. The amount of waste it generates easily exceeds the 2,000-tonne limit, three-quarters of which is non-hazardous waste (municipal waste, paper and cardboard, plastic, toners, food oils, construction waste), and a quarter is hazardous waste (II). sanitary ware, cytostatics, laboratory liquids, batteries and accumulators, radiographs, containers of dangerous products).

The health sector consumes a lot of resources, which is why it is a sector that can provide a lot of opportunities to develop economic activities related to the more efficient use and utilization of these resources.

In fact, 3 million syringes, 14 million gloves, 2,000 tons of laundry and 175,000 m3 of water are used in a large hospital that treats 3 million patients a year.

A project based on the circular economy

The European Commission considers the Circular Economy (NO) to be an appropriate tool to promote more efficient use of resources while promoting greater competitiveness; in fact, it contributes to the development of more innovative and sustainable economic activities, taking advantage of the available local resources.
That’s why Healcier aims to help improve the competitiveness of the healthcare sector by applying the circular economy. The aim is to encourage the more efficient and effective use of resources in health centers in order to promote a more innovative and competitive healthcare sector with a lower environmental impact.