Development is an important area for Coloplast

We want to make life easier for people with intimate healthcare needs and one way of doing this is to create innovative products that meet customers' needs. At the same time we want to contribute to a sustainable development with focus on environment, health and safety.

Developing products

We consider environmental aspects from the beginning of the product development process. By involving environmental specialists at the beginning, they can evaluate a new product proposal from a life cycle perspective, considering how the choice of substances, materials and methods of production affect the environment, health and safety. This helps prevent unnecessary impacts on the environment, health and safety when we develop new products.   

We also re-evaluate existing products. For example, the primary packing of some of our wound care dressings contained aluminium foil to protect them from sun light. However, when it was later discovered that sun light did not damaging the dressings, we replaced the aluminium-containing primary packing with primary packing made of plastic. From an environmental point of view, this was a better alternative because aluminium production is very energy consuming and the waste more problematic to dispose. From a life cycle perspective, the environmental impact of the wound care dressings was reduced.

Developing technologies

Our production machinery is specially designed to produce our products. The department in charge of designing, building and purchasing it is responsible for compliance with the requirements we have established for health and safety.
When we develop a new machine a health and safety specialist is typically involved right from the idea-generation meetings in order to identify likely health and safety challenges.

Developing business

When we plan to acquire new businesses, we check that the company in question is certified according to international environment, health and safety management standards. If it's not we evaluate it on the basis of:

• Environmental screenings of the history of its sites
• The company's environmental approvals from authorities
• Other relevant documentation in relation to environment, health and safety