Making Orthotics sustainable…...

As an industry Orthotics has traditionally been incredibly wasteful, with little regard for the environment.?Quite rightly that is now changing, with companies focussing on the issues that surround sustainability both from an ethical standpoint and for commercial reasons.?

Over the last few years, we have taken inspiration from companies like MAG Orthotics and worked really hard to make Brace Orthopaedic a more sustainable business.?

We have engaged directly with our manufacturing partners in this respect and as a result have made significant developments in reducing unwanted, ‘bad’ or excess packaging.?(I will go into more detail on this topic in a future post.)

Waste has also reduced noticeably, as we have got smarter at recycling and now send hardly anything to landfill.

However, the biggest single area where I felt we could impact sustainability was our carbon footprint, through analysis of the products and processes used to import the devices we distribute here in the UK, but which come from our manufacturing partners around the world.

The focus initially had to be on those products that travelled the furthest to reach us.?We then had to really challenge ourselves in this respect and ask for each product – Does it offer a unique benefit to both the clinician and patient, so making it essential to maintain in our product portfolio??If not, then we have made the tough decision to stop supplying it, as we could not justify the product over the environment.?

We have also looked at how these goods are shipped to us and specifically the mode of transport and the packaging involved in the shipments.?This revealed many opportunities to make improvements.?However, in this respect Brexit has had a negative effect, with longer lead times for delivery, greater administration and increased costs, but also the required addition of covering paperwork to the outside of every box.?Multiplied over all imports to the UK, this must have created a mountain of waste that never previously existed! ?

In summary, we are now down to importing just one product from the southern hemisphere.?Air freight now accounts for only 9% of our imports, whilst 91% come by road freight and are sourced directly from across mainland Europe.

The sustainability process never stops and of course we are still learning.?We don’t get everything right, but we are definitely heading in the right direction…….

If you would like to learn more about Brace Orthopaedic’s range of innovative orthoses or indeed arrange a product demonstration, then please contact Customer Services on 0191 258 8944 where Cathryn or Iain would be delighted to help. Alternatively, please visit our website at www.braceorthopaedic.co.uk