Can bio-based plastic move past the nice story and scale in regulated MedTech?

Tim Wagler is Commercial Director EMEA for Braskem's I'm green bio-based portfolio, polyethylene made from sugarcane instead of fossil feedstock. Braskem just launched an I'm green bio-based medical grade.

In this episode:
- What "physical content" bio-based means and how it differs from mass balance
- Why fossil prices are spiking and bio-based is no longer the expensive option
- The supply and land-use question, and why sugarcane uses 0.03% of Brazil's land today
- Why bio-based is not biodegradable, and the claims you can actually make
- Where a drop-in bio-based polyethylene fits in medical and pharma

CONNECT WITH TIM
Tim Wagler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-wagler-891436a4/
Braskem I'm green: https://www.braskem.com/imgreen/landingpage

ABOUT THE PODCAST
MedTech Sustainability by Design is the Gradical podcast on choosing better plastics and building better medical devices.
Book a free consultation: https://calendly.com/lucas-pianegonda-gradical/discovery-call-gradical
Gradical: https://www.gradical.ch

Do you enjoy this podcast? Then subscribe, rate it on your platform, and join the discussion on LinkedIn! Your feedback and comments help us improve the podcast and bring you relevant topics. Let’s form a better world with plastics!

If you are a Medtech company struggling to make your devices more sustainable, let’s talk—BOOK A CALL HERE.

You can also check our Youtube Channel with lots of free trainings and resources here: Lucas R. Pianegonda - YouTube

Website: www.gradical.ch

How does a company with 120,000 colleagues and 500,000 products put a number on its carbon footprint and actually act on it?

Matthew Yamatin is Global Director Sustainability at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He built the corporate sustainability program from scratch after joining in 2022 and now runs it across eight business groups.

In this episode:

- The scalable method Thermo Fisher uses to calculate product carbon footprints across half a million products

- Why mass balance is the only realistic path to non-fossil plastics in a regulated industry

- How biogenic carbon accounting actually works, and where the greenwashing debate sits

- Why bio-based plastics stay tied to the oil price, and what it takes to decouple them

- How to keep a sustainability program simple enough to move

If you work in sustainability, procurement, or product development in life sciences or medtech, this gives you a model you can copy.

Connect with Matthew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyamatin/

Thermo Fisher Scientific: https://www.thermofisher.com

00:00 How a 120,000-person company tackles sustainability at scale

01:16 The shampoo aisle problem

06:21 Inside Thermo Fisher

12:43 Scope 1, 2, 3 and the GHG Protocol

15:23 PCF vs CCF

17:50 The scalable PCF method

24:21 Why mass balance is the only scalable path

30:27 Biogenic carbon explained

40:59 Why bio-based costs more

44:10 Building a program from scratch

49:33 Find your North Star KPI

55:14 Closing

Do you enjoy this podcast? Then subscribe, rate it on your platform, and join the discussion on LinkedIn! Your feedback and comments help us improve the podcast and bring you relevant topics. Let’s form a better world with plastics!

If you are a Medtech company struggling to make your devices more sustainable, let’s talk—BOOK A CALL HERE.

You can also check our Youtube Channel with lots of free trainings and resources here: Lucas R. Pianegonda - YouTube

Website: www.gradical.ch

"Do not do ego-design." A professor told Bart Verleije that in school, and it shaped how he has built medical devices ever since.

Bart is Commercial Director at Voxdale, a Belgian design and engineering firm, with more than 1,400 projects over 19 years. He explains how a napkin sketch becomes a certified, manufacturable device, and where most MedTech projects go wrong before they reach a patient.

In this episode:

- His BURST framework: Business, User, Regulatory, Sustainability, Technology

- Why design for manufacturability has to start on day one

- How to stop feature creep and trade off conflicting requirements

- The Ergotrics story: an inflatable system for turning and proning patients

If you develop devices, this one will change how you scope your next project.

Connect with Bart: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartverleije/

Voxdale: https://www.voxdale.be

00:00 From a napkin sketch to a certified device

00:56 Meet Bart Verleije: 1,400+ projects, 19 years at Voxdale

01:45 Commit to your product before you build it

05:05 "Do not do ego-design"

06:42 Why every stakeholder needs at least a neutral stance

09:56 The BURST framework: Business, User, Regulatory, Sustainability, Technology

15:46 Design for manufacturability from day one

20:30 The operational cost teams overlook

23:20 A healthy take on AI in documentation

28:29 Database-first documentation and regulation as code

30:13 The conservation of misery: trading off requirements

34:04 Only five value drivers make the board

37:28 "How do you know this?" Breaking false requirements

40:11 Over-requirement is the biggest cost driver

41:33 From a highway traffic jam to proning patients

45:10 The toothpaste factory and the 20-dollar fan

48:17 Bart's advice: commit, talk to experts, stay in your lane

55:28 Closing

Do you enjoy this podcast? Then subscribe, rate it on your platform, and join the discussion on LinkedIn! Your feedback and comments help us improve the podcast and bring you relevant topics. Let’s form a better world with plastics!

If you are a Medtech company struggling to make your devices more sustainable, let’s talk—BOOK A CALL HERE.

You can also check our Youtube Channel with lots of free trainings and resources here: Lucas R. Pianegonda - YouTube

Website: www.gradical.ch