Committee

Environment and sustainability

The Environment and Sustainability Committee deals with current issues relating to the environment, sustainability and product safety. It pools information on current legal requirements, derives recommendations for action and offers the opportunity to discuss practical solutions.

Contact person

Dr. Sandra Wagener

Environment and sustainability

+49 30 200 599-51

The topics of the committee

The Environment Committee has been dealing with environmentally relevant topics and issues relating to chemical and product safety for several decades. With the establishment of the new Environment and Sustainability department, the committee was renamed and since then has also dealt with sustainability issues such as sustainable transformation and the circular economy.

Development of a sustainability strategy

The committee plays an active role in shaping the industry's focus on the environment and sustainability.

Chemical and product safety

Regular updates on relevant legislative revisions such as REACH, RoHS or CLP are given at the meetings. Experience in dealing with legal requirements is exchanged, in particular on restriction procedures such as PFAS or Triton. The committee also works on establishing industry solutions, for example in the area of pollutant disposal.

Sustainability

Regular updates on relevant legislative revisions such as taxonomy, reporting obligations and the circular economy are provided at the meetings. The association's new focal points are dealt with in greater depth in the newly established Transformation Working Group and Circular Economy and New Technologies Working Group. The topics developed there are incorporated into the committee's discussions and serve as the basis for measures to implement the association's sustainability strategy.

Political work

In addition to the recommendations for action resulting from new legislation, the association uses the committee to promote the interests of the diagnostics industry in the area of environmental legislation. Conflicting objectives with the IVDR sectoral legislation are addressed to ensure that patient safety is not compromised. Where no alternatives are available, exemptions for IVDs are to be obtained. Close cooperation is taking place here with the European umbrella organization MedTech Europe.

Working groups in the committee

Other committees