The Circular Kickstart Healthcare Challenge: Driving Circular Healthcare

A sector facing challenges

The healthcare sector faces significant environmental and circular challenges. The intensive use of single-use materials generates large amounts of waste, while energy and water consumption further increases its carbon footprint. Pharmaceutical residues and chemical waste place an additional burden on the environment.

The Circular Kickstart Healthcare Challenge: Inspiration and Guidance

With the Healthcare Challenge, founder Mieke Pieters inspires and supports start-ups, scale-ups, healthcare institutions and large companies. Through various programs, including the Circular Healthcare Challenge, she demonstrates to participants how innovation and sustainability can mutually reinforce one another.

“The key is to teach entrepreneurs how they can grow without using new materials, and how theycan achieve success with circular contracts such as pay-per-use, service, and take-back clauses” says Mieke.

Five concrete challenges

As part of the Circular Kickstart program, the partners have defined five concrete challenges:

• Switch from single-use to multiple-use materials;
• Reuse of devices and components;
• Find circular packaging solutions;
• Make processes and raw materials in the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors more sustainable;
• Set up a circular and flexible healthcare infrastructure.

Several participating start-ups are currently working on solutions that:

• Reuse medical devices or components instead of discarding them;
• Convert food waste into energy, creating value from waste streams;
• Transform recycled materials into new panels, particularly for the furniture industry
• Use bio-based and renewable materials in packaging and infrastructure.

Living labs as a testing environment

Living labs are a key element: innovations are tested in a real healthcare environment in more than 50 hospitals across Belgium. This provides valuable insights and stimulates collaboration between start-ups, healthcare institutions, and industrial partners.

New models, lasting impact

In addition to technological innovation, the Circular Kickstart Healthcare Challenge also focuses on new economic models. By shifting from traditional purchasing to usage-based formulas, promoting repairability and developing circular contracts, the living lab methodology—supported by the Living Lab Canvas—ensures that this approach is both scalable and transferable.