Offsetting our impact – climate neutral procedure packs
24 January 2023
We’ve offset 20,175 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to make your Procedure Packs Climate Neutral.
Multigate is committed to better and more sustainable outcomes throughout the hospital ecosystem – patients, clinicians, facilities and the environment. As a leading supplier of Procedure Packs to Australian hospitals, offsetting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with products contained within these packs was a crucial first step.
The GHG emissions generated by every Procedure Pack Multigate supplied to its customers in Australia this financial year has been fully offset by the purchase of carbon credits. Multigate CEO Ben Chen said it was important to ensure this was independently verified.
“Multigate use 3rd party environmental specialists to measure the impact of our business operations and products, and to validate our climate neutral claims. We partnered with South Pole, an organisation that helps businesses develop and implement comprehensive emission reduction projects and strategies,”
- Ben Chen
Ben also added that,
“South Pole reviewed the lifecycle assessments (LCA) created by Lifecycles and they verified that we have accurately accounted for the cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions embodied in over 1,800 components used to make up over 2,000 Procedure Packs. This verification represents a foundational step of our climate journey; by following our Small Change Big Impact framework, we are seeking to use our design and sourcing capability to further reduce these environmental costs over time."
Procedure pack carbon footprint
To compensate for the emissions generated by the Procedure Pack portfolio, Multigate has offset 20,175 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).
“This has the same emission reduction effect as removing 6,902 average Australian cars off the road for one year,”
- Ben Chen
Supported Projects
Multigate is supporting a range of projects that offset the GHG emissions associated with manufacturing offshore and those created by our domestic business operations. Some of these focus on renewable energy, while others are designed to enhance biodiversity. Here is a brief description of the projects we are currently supporting.
Huaneng Jilin Tongyu wind farm
This innovative project harnessing ocean winds to generate clean, renewable energy for China. It is a large-scale wind farm consisting of 67 turbines generating energy year round in the far eastern province of Jilin. Around 230,800 MWh of electricity is produced annually - enough to power 13,310 homes each year.
Hubei Pankou Hydropower station
Supplying clean energy and driving down harmful pollution for the local community, this is located on the Du River in China’s Hubei Province. It generates clean electricity through a hydropower station with an installed capacity of 500MW and the environment is spared from 782,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions on average per year.
Jingxing Papermill Biogas
Transforming wastewater emissions into clean energy, this facility located near Hangzhou bay at the East China Sea shore, has two production lines with a total paper production capacity of 600,000 tons per year – generating up to 5 million cubic metres of wastewater which can release potent methane emissions. These are being captured and converted into electricity, with the goal of reducing 60,000 tonnes of CO2 on average each year and providing 10,914 MWh per year of affordable and clean energy.
Mount Sandy conservation area in South Australia
This project ensures permanent protection for a regionally and culturally important pocket of biodiversity-rich land, in partnership with its Traditional Owners. Multigate chose to support this particular project because we are keen to help protect Australian native wildlife and habitat. Investment in this project is additional – the credits we purchased in this project do not count towards our greenhouse gas emissions offset total.
Benchmarking for continuous improvement
Multigate has a comprehensive environmental stewardship program with clear objectives to systematically reduce emissions in our operations and our products. We are also a verified carbon neutral company, which we see as an important first step in a body of work aimed at reducing our environmental impact in all facets of our business.
On 30 June 2022, Multigate was awarded a Sustainability Bronze Medal and certificate from EcoVadis, the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings. “This is the first time Multigate has sought this evaluation and we are very proud to have joined over 90,000 companies worldwide in securing a benchmark in sustainability performance,” Mr Chen said.
Multigate scored 54/100 on our first assessment, placing us in the top 35% of companies assessed. This provides us with a internationally-recognised framework by which we can benchmark and measure the improvement in our social and environmental performance over time.
Our carbon offset is another major step on our journey to drive further environmental benefits for our customers, without compromising on clinical outcomes.