By Jyri Mäkinen, HCF Global Sales Manager, Wipak Health
Sustainability is becoming a key priority across healthcare systems worldwide. Hospitals, healthcare providers and medical device manufacturers are increasingly expected to reduce environmental impacts while maintaining the highest standards of patient safety and regulatory compliance. The challenge lies in balancing these objectives without compromising quality or performance.
At Steriking®, sustainability is not viewed as a separate initiative but as an integral part of product development, manufacturing and operational excellence. Backed by Wipak’s latest ESG Report 2025, this approach brings together environmental progress, patient safety, responsible sourcing, employee well-being and transparent governance, all essential for more sustainable healthcare packaging. Steriking® packaging solutions are designed to help healthcare organizations reach their environmental goals while continuing to protect patients and healthcare professionals.
Unlike many industries, healthcare packaging operates within a highly regulated environment where product safety can never be compromised. In healthcare, sustainable packaging is not only about lowering environmental impact, it also requires robust quality systems, safe working practices, responsible supplier management and transparent governance. Wipak’s sustainability approach is therefore built specifically for healthcare applications, combining environmental responsibility, patient safety and compliance with stringent industry requirements.
All sustainability improvements are implemented while maintaining essential packaging performance characteristics such as sterilization compatibility, barrier integrity and compliance with recognized healthcare packaging standards. This commitment is supported by internationally recognized management systems, including ISO 14001 for environmental management and ISO 13485 and ISO 9001 for quality management and operational excellence. Wipak has also achieved an EcoVadis Silver rating and is working towards a Platinum rating by 2030.
Wipak has made significant progress in reducing its environmental footprint. The company achieved its 2025 carbon-neutrality target through a combination of substantial emission reductions and certified climate contributions. Operational emissions have been reduced significantly since 2019, while more than 96% of the electricity used across production sites now comes from sustainable sources. The company is also committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), with ambitions to further reduce product-related emissions by 2030.
These efforts demonstrate that meaningful climate action is possible even in highly regulated industries where quality and safety requirements are exceptionally demanding.
Sustainability extends beyond manufacturing operations. Responsible sourcing and material selection are critical parts of creating more sustainable healthcare packaging.
Wipak applies ESG-based supplier assessments, targeted supplier audits and a Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure responsible practices throughout its supply chain. Selected sites are certified under ISCC PLUS, enabling the use of certified circular and bio-circular raw materials with traceability through a mass-balance approach. Additionally, Steriking® shipping boxes are FSC® certified and contain significant levels of recycled fibre content. The company also focuses on reducing logistics-related emissions through shipment consolidation, improved production planning and collaboration with local or regional suppliers whenever possible.
Healthcare organizations worldwide are increasingly setting ambitious targets for carbon reduction and waste minimization. Sustainability considerations are becoming an important part of procurement decisions and supplier evaluations.
Steriking® products are designed to support these objectives directly. By reducing waste, enabling recycling and improving resource efficiency, Steriking® packaging solutions help hospitals lower lifecycle impacts without compromising the sterility and safety of medical devices.
One important contributor is the long-validated shelf life provided by Steriking® packaging. Longer shelf life helps hospitals reduce product expiration, minimize unnecessary reprocessing and lower emissions associated with sterile processing activities. This delivers both environmental and operational benefits across healthcare facilities.
As healthcare organizations seek to improve waste segregation and recycling rates, packaging design plays an increasingly important role. Steriking® offers a variety of solutions that support recycling and circular-economy objectives. Depending on the application, products may utilize recyclable mono-material polypropylene structures, recyclable Tyvek® materials within HDPE recycling streams, or packaging components that can be separated into dedicated paper and plastic recycling channels. Certain trayliner solutions additionally incorporate bio-based materials. This design-for-recycling philosophy helps healthcare organizations reduce landfill waste, support national waste-reduction initiatives and improve overall resource efficiency.
Sustainability in healthcare is not only about reducing carbon emissions. It is about creating long-term value through responsible use of resources, circular design, employee well-being, ethical business practices and sustainable supply chains.
Steriking® products are developed using carefully selected materials that support both environmental and chemical safety requirements. Features include solvent-free laminates, water-based lead-free inks, compliance with REACH requirements and the avoidance of substances such as PFAS, latex and phthalates. Materials are also selected to support patient safety and global regulatory compliance.
By reducing potential environmental and occupational exposure risks, these choices align with the growing ESG expectations of healthcare providers and public-sector organizations.
Healthcare procurement is evolving rapidly. Organizations are increasingly evaluating suppliers based not only on product performance but also on environmental, social and governance credentials. Steriking® products are aligned with emerging procurement requirements, including net-zero initiatives, carbon disclosure expectations, recyclability objectives and broader sustainability roadmaps. By combining verified regulatory performance with continuous environmental improvements, Steriking® enables healthcare providers to make responsible purchasing decisions without compromising clinical outcomes.
Through reduced emissions, improved recyclability, strong governance practices and transparent sustainability commitments, Steriking® helps healthcare suppliers and hospitals demonstrate progress towards their own sustainability goals.
The transition towards more sustainable healthcare requires collaboration across the value chain. Packaging manufacturers, hospitals, healthcare providers and medical device companies all have an important role to play.
By combining patient safety, regulatory compliance, circular design principles and measurable environmental performance, Steriking® is helping healthcare organizations move towards a future where sustainability and clinical excellence go hand in hand.
By Michel Terwolbeck, Global Sales Director, Wipak Health
In today’s rapidly evolving global landscape, resilience and reliability have never been more critical, especially in healthcare, where supply continuity directly impacts patient safety.
The ongoing war in Ukraine and the escalating tensions in the Middle East are not only humanitarian crises—they are also reshaping global supply chains in profound ways. One particularly significant development is the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, a vital gateway for raw materials used across industries, including raw materials for flexible packaging.
The consequences are already visible. Volatility in the availability and pricing of key raw materials is increasing, leading to necessary price adjustments across the market. While these developments are widely recognized, their implications for healthcare packaging supply chains are especially critical.
At Wiicare, we fully understand the responsibility we carry. Our products, sterile barrier systems and hospital sterilization packaging, are essential components in safeguarding patient health. Therefore, despite the challenging environment, we are taking every possible measure to mitigate supply risks. Through proactive sourcing strategies, strong supplier partnerships, and global production flexibility, we are committed to ensuring that our customers experience no disruption in supply.
While the external environment remains volatile, we are simultaneously strengthening our global value proposition. A key pillar in this strategy is Wiicare.
Launched in 2021, Wiicare has been very well received by the market. Our global partners have long expressed the need for suppliers that can deliver consistent, high-quality solutions across continents—ideally with identical products and harmonized standards worldwide. By joining the healthcare packaging strengths of Winpak and Wipak under the Wiicare name, we have taken significant steps forward. Today, Wiicare operates as one global team, aligned in its processes, mindset, and customer focus.
We are Wiicare: Everything we do is designed to CARE. For customers, patients, and the world around us.
This unified approach enables us to support our customers globally with greater agility, consistency, and confidence, especially in times when resilience is more important than ever.
To support long-term growth, Wipak Health is strengthening its manufacturing capabilities through a comprehensive investment program at its Nastola facility in Finland. This includes cleanroom expansion, new production equipment and improved operational efficiency. Over the past five years, Wipak has invested nearly €200 million in new and upgraded assets, expanding to 11 sites across Europe and Asia and employing 1,800 professionals.
In parallel, Wipak is investing in new production machinery and automation to enhance efficiency and performance. The program includes new pouch manufacturing lines, upgraded converting and slitting equipment, as well as automated material handling solutions such as conveyors and robotics, alongside improvements in packaging, quality control and process automation. Implementation across 2026–2027 enables a controlled ramp-up of capacity and improved operational reliability.
Looking beyond today’s challenges, we are firmly focused on the future. Under our Horizon 2030 vision, Wipak and Wiicare are preparing for the next phase of growth and transformation. While continued business growth remains a key priority, we equally recognize that the foundations of future success will be built on automation, harmonization, and digitalization.
These elements are becoming increasingly critical to drive efficiency and enhance responsiveness, while enabling more precise and standardised working processes across the organisation. At the same time, they support maintaining cost competitiveness, further elevating our already high standards of quality and accuracy, and strengthening our position as a frontrunner in sustainable packaging.
To support this journey, we have launched our internal development program WiLeap. Within WiLeap, multiple strategic workstreams are actively shaping the future of Wipak and Wiicare, all aimed at elevating our operational excellence and customer value even further.
Needless to say, “Customer Experience” is at the heart of Wiicare and WiLeap. Every initiative is designed not only to improve internal performance, but to create tangible benefits for our customers, through faster response times, greater transparency, improved consistency, and easier collaboration.
In essence, this development program is about ensuring that we are not only ready for 2030 but that we are setting new standards along the way.
The decisions and actions we are taking today from securing supply chains to optimizing our production footprint, strengthening Wiicare, and investing in WiLeap development programs, are all guided by one clear objective: ensuring long-term continuity, quality, and reliability for our customers.
At Wiicare, we strive for the highest standards in advanced manufacturing and cleanroom technology. Combined with our global reach and alignment, and the forward-looking drive of WiLeap, we are reinforcing our ability to deliver excellence in an increasingly complex world.
While global uncertainties persist, our mission remains unchanged: to protect patients by securing the availability of safe, high-quality healthcare packaging solutions.
At Wiicare, we cannot control geopolitical development but we can control how we respond. Through proactive decision-making, strong global partnerships under Wiicare, and future-focused initiatives like WiLeap, we will continue to navigate these challenges and emerge stronger.
We thank you for your trust and partnership.
Wiicare – Designed to Care.
