Better understanding our materials, supply chain, and product lifecycle impacts will empower us to make better material choices for the health of patients and the planet. We strive to design and deliver lifesaving products to patients, and to minimize environmental externalities that occur during the manufacturing and delivery process.
In light of the ever-changing chemical regulatory landscape, we are continually working to advance our knowledge of our materials' lifecycle impacts. We have formed a database to support more efficient reporting on raw material and product level information to regulatory bodies as well as customers.
Based on the results of our chemical inventory efforts and an uptick in customer expectations, our Research and Development function decided to make several significant commitments over the last few years. We will no longer use Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) in the future development of medical devices. PVC is seen as a chemical of concern in medical devices mainly due to their incineration after use, which releases embodied chlorine into the environment where it can contribute to air and water pollution. We will do our part to preserve the health of our planet by discontinuing the use of PVC in future medical devices. We are also committed to redesigning existing products to exclude DEHP, a regulated phthalate.
We are committed to creating a robust chemical database of our medical device business. We have formed a global, interdisciplinary team to identify and address chemicals of concern throughout our supply chain. We partnered with Assent Compliance to form a comprehensive database including compliance documentation for REACH, RoHS, EU-MDR and other relevant regulations. Assent assists us in implementing rigorous campaigns to collect restricted substance data on the raw materials which makeup our devices. In 2021, we launched a global material survey, which was created to address questions outside of the regulations’ scope, including those questions commonly asked by our customers. This survey encourages global consistency and will be deployed as needed to continue to grow our material information database. Over the last few years, we have continued to see progress and consistently receive updated chemical regulation documentation from suppliers as the regulatory requirements update.
We are also committed to developing robust internal policies regarding chemicals of concern and prioritizing movement away from these chemicals in future products and processes. We have developed a comprehensive Raw Material Management Policy that will guide global decisions about materials. We keep abreast of industry trends and market demands to guide our Research and Development function in designing away from chemicals of concern. We see this effort as an opportunity to continuously improve and to pursue excellence in our supply chain interactions.
