Empowering young people: Mediq participates in the “Summer Sustainability Challenge”

Organized by the Roeterseiland Impact - the “Summer Sustainability Challenge” is a 3-week program for students from Dutch universities, packed with workshops, presentations, and ideation sessions. Anchored in a vision of bridging the gap between education and practice, the challenge is aimed to help students gain relevant experience in the field of sustainability, boost their consultancy skills and grow their network.

In the beginning of the challenge, teams are tasked to help companies in becoming more sustainable. The challenge consists of the 3 stages: Data Collection, Data Analysis and Key findings & Recommendations.

This year, Mediq joined companies like Signify , Lely , and BuyBuyCart to ask “The Sustainability Warriors” team ( Veerle Corten , student at the University of Amsterdam, & Lilly Gintowt , student at the University of Utrecht)  to assess Mediq’s existing product portfolio and determine if our stock reflects the most sustainable supplies on the market. In addition, the team was asked to research sustainable product alternatives that we could add to our supply range.

Three weeks of the challenge flew by, and “The Sustainability Warriors” have taken the stage to present their key finding and recommendations to Renée Schluter , our CSR coordinator.

Renée was extremely impressed with the results of the challenge and said: “Lilly and Veerle were both very motivated to help us with this challenge, they very quickly had a good understanding of the struggles related to the task. They did a tremendous job in finding several more sustainable alternatives, like biodegradable incontinence material and face masks made from corn starch. They even set up a development cycle for face masks made from hemp and created a selection chart to promote more sustainable choices in incontinence care. They also found that ostomy care related products and procedures that we currently offer are already most sustainable in the market. It was a pleasure working with them.”

Lilly from the “The Sustainability Warriors” team said: “I really liked working with a company that cares so much about making their patients comfortable and contributing not only to environmental sustainability but also social. When I learned about Mediq’s values; caring heart, customer drive, and champion spirit, I knew that I made the right choice by working with them for this challenge, which aligns with what I believe in!”

 “The Sustainability Warriors” team summed up their experience:

“We’ve learned that implementing sustainability in healthcare is way more complicated than we thought. Every time we found a more sustainable option, the option was sustainable in one way but not sustainable when looked at it from a different perspective. Furthermore, the environmental impact of medical commodity products is more significant than we expected. It also became clear that the patient is a significant factor in making healthcare more sustainable, for example, with Ostomy care, some products are more sustainable, though many patients do not use or are not aware of more sustainable options.

We learned a lot about different medical products and how they are currently being used in Mediq, which I had little experience with before this challenge. We also learned that only so much can be done by Mediq alone, and in reality, this transition has to happen with everyone. So another big ingredient of this challenge is teamwork to get everyone on board with making sustainable change.”

Thank you, “The Sustainability Warriors,” for participating in the “Summer Sustainability Challenge”, we cannot thank you enough for choosing Mediq and we’re excited to see what the future holds for you. Perhaps we’ll meet again 😊