Tag: Healthcare Sustainability

Step into any hospital supply room and you’ll see it, piles of single-use packaging, extra boxes kept “just in case,” and supplies edging toward expiration because they were over-ordered months ago. None of this is due to negligence because hospitals are built to be ready for anything, but that readiness comes at a cost.

The healthcare supply chain is complex. While hospitals rely on it, the supply chain itself is responsible for ensuring reliability—delivering the right product to the right place at the right time. Today, however, another priority is rising alongside reliability: sustainability.

And here’s the shift: sustainability isn’t about being environmentally responsible anymore. It’s about financial responsibility, too. Hospitals that rethink procurement through a sustainability lens aren’t just cutting waste; they uncover serious cost savings.

The True Cost of Traditional Procurement

For decades, hospital purchasing was driven by two main goals: quality and cost. 

But that model created a ripple effect that few anticipated. The U.S. healthcare sector accounts for nearly 10% of national greenhouse gas emissions[1] and produces millions of tons of waste yearly. Many of those costs are avoidable, not just environmentally, but financially.

Why Sustainability and Cost Efficiency Go Hand in Hand

There’s a myth that sustainable products and practices always cost more. But hospitals that have examined the full picture know that’s rarely true.

Sustainable procurement no longer considers “price per unit” but total ownership cost, including purchase, supervision, logistics, and end-of-life disposal. And if you do the math, environmentally safe options usually cost less in the long run.

Consider surgical gowns as an example. The transition from disposable to reusable gowns might require a larger initial investment. Still, the savings throughout the product’s life are due to reduced waste hauling and less frequent interruptions of delivery and ordering. This applies to washable textiles, reprocessable instruments, and efficient cleaning systems.

Sustainable procurement goes far beyond the products themselves. It influences every supply chain step, from vendor selection to data transparency. Hospitals that align their purchasing practices with sustainability principles often find they can streamline vendors, shorten delivery routes, and optimize inventory management, leading to measurable financial savings and a reduced environmental footprint.

At its core, sustainability is really a more thoughtful and deliberate form of efficiency.

Data-Driven Procurement

You can’t improve what you can’t see.

Supply chain data is scattered across GPO contracts, local vendor spreadsheets, and department-level purchase orders for many health systems. That fragmentation makes it hard to know what’s being used or wasted.

That’s where spend analytics platforms like Valify come in. By unifying purchasing data from across all facilities, these tools reveal patterns that once went unnoticed:

• Which categories generate the most waste?
• Where product duplication inflates cost?
• How do supplier delivery routes impact fuel and freight expenses?
• Which “green” alternatives are already available under existing GPO contracts?

With that visibility, procurement teams can make informed decisions that reduce environmental and financial waste, not through guesswork, but through measurable insight.

In many cases, hospitals find that they don’t need to overhaul their contracts; they just need to optimize how they use them.

The Role of GPOs in Driving Sustainable Procurement

Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) have established themselves as key players in the healthcare industry’s quest for cost-effective purchasing and the simultaneous acquisition of sustainability benefits.

Most top-ranking GPOs are adding environmental factors to the list of supplier assessment criteria. In this scenario, hospitals can select the clinically and environmentally approved products without undertaking the laborious task of research anew.

For the regional networks, this is the time when local GPOs excel. They know the nearby supply landscape, transportation costs, waste regulations, and the limitations of national contracts that vendors can handle. Through partnering with local companies, hospitals can realize several key benefits, such as:

• Lessening freight emissions and cutting delivery costs are among the significant benefits of this arrangement.
• Buying goods from suppliers that are closer in proximity, thus increasing their reliability and reducing lead times.
• Taking part in joint recycling or reprocessing programs that are not feasible nationally.

True sustainable value is found at the intersection of national scale and local agility, where the GPOs of large companies provide leverage while the small GPOs provide context. As a result, hospitals can achieve sustainability targets without incurring additional costs.

Sustainable Procurement in Practice

Sustainability in procurement doesn’t always mean total policy change. It often starts with simple, practical decisions that compound over time.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Standardize Products

Too many variations of the same product drive waste, not just in storage space, but in expired or unused inventory. Standardization simplifies ordering and reduces surplus.

Use Reusable and Reprocessable Supplies

Switching to reusable surgical instruments, containers, and linens reduces recurring purchases and waste disposal costs. It also insulates hospitals from supply chain disruptions.

Source Locally and Consolidated Deliveries

Shorter transport distances mean less fuel consumption and faster restocks. Fewer deliveries cut both costs and carbon emissions.

Implement Waste Segregation and Recycling

Hospitals that sort waste properly can dramatically reduce disposal costs. Partnering with recycling vendors, often through a GPO, turns what was once waste into recoverable value.

Ensure Supplier Accountability

Embedding sustainability clauses in contracts encourages vendors to adopt greener practices — whether through packaging, energy-efficient manufacturing, or take-back programs.

Small adjustments add up, becoming powerful when embedded into daily purchasing practices.

Getting Started: A Framework for Action

Hospitals are eager to go green, but many struggle to figure out where to begin. The key is structure, which can transform sustainability from an idea to a process.

Here’s a practical framework most successful systems follow:

1. Assess the Baseline

Audit your existing procurement data. What is the waste? Which vendors are the main contributors to freight costs? What is being over-ordered or not used sufficiently?

2. Set Concrete Goals

Rather than making ambiguous promises, set exact goals: a 10% reduction in supply chain waste, a 15% increase in reusable products, or 20% of spend under sustainable contracts.

3. Involve Departments from the Start

Procurement does not function in isolation. Bring clinicians, facilities, and finance teams together to make sustainable decisions in the right context, supporting operational workflows and patient care needs.

4. Use GPO Knowledge

Request your GPO to spot green alternatives and work on the price with suppliers who can meet environmental and financial requirements.

5. Measure and Communicate

Data analysis tools can help you monitor every month or every quarter. Internally inform the company of the advantages, savings, waste reductions, and supplier performance to maintain the movement’s strength.

6. Expand the Successful Approaches

Once small pilot programs prove successful, they should be scaled across the entire department or facility. Continuous improvement builds on itself, strengthening the overall strategy and driving greater cost savings over time.

This step-by-step approach turns sustainability into a practical part of procurement, not a side project.

The Challenges — and How to Overcome Them

Transitioning to sustainable procurement can be quite a challenge. The main resistance factors are usually the perception of higher costs, fatigue from changes, and insufficient data.

Perceptions of higher costs fade when lifecycle analyses show that ‘green’ doesn’t always mean expensive. Change fatigue lessens as small victories and pilot projects prove success. Proper data tools make sustainability measurable, replacing abstract goals with concrete metrics.

In the end, the mindset is the primary barrier. When hospitals prioritize sustainability as an efficiency driver rather than an extra initiative, everything else becomes unblocked.

Looking Ahead: Data Will Define the Future

The next phase of sustainable purchasing will mainly rely on data and collaboration. Real-time sharing of metrics related to carbon footprint, waste production, and total cost performance, among others, is now the norm for healthcare institutions, vendors, and group purchasing organizations (GPOs).

Imagine a dashboard that shows the life cycle cost and eco-friendly impact of every product decision simultaneously. For instance, a purchasing agent can immediately see how the change from single-use to reusable affects the budget and emissions.

This level of transparency is coming fast. Platforms like Valify are already paving the way, giving procurement teams visibility that turns sustainability from a philosophy into a measurable discipline.

In the near future, hospitals won’t ask, “Can we afford to be sustainable?”

They will ask, “Can we afford not to?”

Final Thoughts

Sustainable procurement is becoming the standard and not a niche initiative anymore. Smart and responsible hospital operations are increasingly built around it. Waste reduction and cost-cutting are not two different objectives but rather the same one, viewed from a wider perspective. 

Hospitals that consider sustainability when making purchasing decisions to save money and protect their future against regulatory, financial, and supply chain risks.

As healthcare becomes more sustainable, it will not be another marketing ploy but rather a reality, benefiting patients, communities, and healthcare providers.

By buying smarter, reducing waste, and analyzing every process, hospitals care for patients and the entire healthcare system.

Start making data-driven, sustainable decisions today. Discover how Valify can help your organization transform procurement into a force for financial and environmental health.

FAQs

1. What is sustainable procurement in hospitals?

Sustainable procurement is the purchasing of products and services that are both eco-friendly and cost-efficient. That is, they reduce waste, conserve resources, and lower the total cost over the product’s lifespan.

2. How does sustainability reduce hospital costs?

Improvements in supply efficiency result from the hospitals cutting their disposal, freight, and inventory costs through preventing overordering, minimizing waste, reusing supplies, and optimizing vendor routes.

3. What role do GPOs play in sustainable procurement?

Group Purchasing Organizations allow hospitals to identify eco-friendly and economical products, help them negotiate sustainable contracts, and connect with local suppliers to cut down on emissions and freight costs.

4. Why is data important for sustainable purchasing?

Data analysis uncovers patterns of waste, product duplication, and supplier inefficacies, giving hospitals the power to make the right decisions from both environmental and financial perspectives.

5. What are the practical steps hospitals can take to start?

Hospitals that consider sustainability when making purchasing decisions can save money and protect their future against regulatory, financial, and supply chain risks.

Shara Smith

Shara Smith serves as the Marketing Director for both Valify and Valify Solutions Group, where she oversees all facets of marketing, including strategic planning, branding, digital marketing, and event management. She joined Valify in September 2021, bringing with her a wealth of experience in healthcare marketing and business development.