Last December, the Journal Health Affairs concluded that the health sector is “responsible for 4.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions” and that the “vast majority of health care global greenhouse gas emissions originate in the supply chain.” Hospitals’ over-reliance on “disposable” or “single-use” medical devices and equipment over the last 30 years has been further exacerbated by the challenges associated with COVID. And supply chain vulnerabilities have demonstrated that reliance on a disposable culture may not always provide healthcare workers with the supplies they need.
Carbon transformation company Twelve and biotechnology company LanzaTech (Skokie, IL) have partnered to transform CO2 emissions into polypropylene, a key polymer used for medical devices including syringes and IV bags, as well as for large-scale applications in automotive, furniture, textiles, and other everyday products.
A recent report by the UN's IPCC on climate change highlights how severe global warming is, which is reinforced by the wildfires out west and the flash floods out east. But there are few reports on what the health care and medical device industries are doing to limit their contributions to the climate crisis.
Every industry has the responsibility to do what it can to limit its carbon footprint and the partnership between LanzaTech and Twelve is using technology to capture carbon emissions to produce vital medical equipment and devices used every day in our healthcare systems.
The two companies are partnering to develop polypropylene using carbon transformation, an approach that takes into account the global health crisis and climate change
Twelve’s carbon transformation technology converts CO2 into materials that are traditionally made from fossil fuels. The company helps brands eliminate emissions by replacing the petrochemicals in their products and supply chains with CO2Made® carbon-negative chemicals and materials, as well as carbon-neutral fuels.
LanzaTech’s carbon recycling Pollution To Products™ technology uses nature-based solutions to produce ethanol and other materials from waste carbon sources. The partnership will bring together the two platform technologies to enable additional product development from CO2 streams, representing just one of many pathways to scale carbon transformation solutions.
“Polypropylene is a key material for essential medical supplies and for many products we rely on in our daily lives. Today, 100 percent of new polypropylene in use worldwide is made from petrochemicals. We now have a way to produce this critical material from CO2 and water instead of from fossil fuels, with no tradeoffs in quality, efficacy, or performance. Replacing all of the world’s fossil polypropylene production with CO2Made polypropylene would reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 700 million tons per year or more,” said Twelve Chief Science Officer, Dr. Etosha Cave.
“By harnessing biology, we can leverage the power of nature to solve a very modern problem. The overabundance of CO2 in our atmosphere has pushed our planet into a state of emergency. We need all carbon transformation solutions to turn this liability into an opportunity, keeping fossil resources in the ground, and our climate safe for everyone,” said LanzaTech CEO, Dr. Jennifer Holmgren.
To pursue the partnership, Twelve and LanzaTech have been awarded a $200,000 grant from Impact Squared, a $1.1 million fund that was designed and launched by British universal bank Barclays and Unreasonable, a catalytic platform for entrepreneurs tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges. With the Impact Squared grant, Twelve and LanzaTech are taking a collaborative approach to reduce the fossil fuel impact of essential products.
