Sustainability & ESG
At PENTAX Medical, we want to be responsible corporate citizens. Together with HOYA, we act to protect our environment, support communities and improve lives around the globe.
Explore our Journey to Sustainability
Being a responsible medical device manufacturer, we aim for a balance between patient safety and the inevitable impact on the environment and climate. We work to improve this balance and the level of sustainability by reducing our waste or looking for environmentally friendly alternatives.
As part of our corporate social responsibility, we support equality and promote access to quality education and healthcare for everyone. As smart innovators, we believe that we can find a balance between nature and humanity, industry and society.
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Three Basic Principles in Sustainability
In implementing this Sustainability Code, we are guided in particular by the following three basic principles:
Principle of Equality
We are committed to ensuring undifferentiated access to medical devices and related health services, irrespective of origin, social status, disabilities, or other physical limitations. This principle also applies to working conditions, ensuring that similar situations are not treated differently without valid reasons. Specifically, remuneration should not vary by gender.
Environmental Sustainability in Product Development
We have incorporated environmental sustainability as a key consideration in our new product development process, requiring our engineering teams to assess and address the related environmental consequences.
Precautionary Principle
We take preventive measures to avoid or minimize the negative environmental and social impacts of our economic activities.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development resulted in 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These provide a framework to improve peace and prosperity and to protect and clean up our planet. It enables all businesses and organizations worldwide to help each other to achieve these goals.
At PENTAX Medical we recognize the need for action to tackle global challenges such as climate change.
Our journey to a more sustainable future has just begun. We invite you to join us and follow us on this path.
PENTAX Medical's Goals of the Global Corporation
We are committed to improving global patient safety and healthcare quality, providing quality endoscopic education, and promoting fair employment and equality. The company emphasises sustainable water use and environmental practices, prohibits slavery and child labour, and supports resilient infrastructure, sustainable industrialisation and innovation.
Planting Trees to Compensate
To ensure patient safety, the production of medical products is regulated by stringent quality assurance processes and safety regulations. Carbon emissions can therefore not always be completely avoided. To compensate for this, we seek ways to neutralise our carbon emissions. We are happy to support the Togo reforestation project to compensate for the carbon emissions in the production of our PlasmaBAG™ endoscope storage bags. As a result, all PlasmaBAG endoscope storage bags are carbon neutral.
Minimising Freight Volume
Endoscopic devices are very delicate technical instruments. To protect them during transport, proper packaging is essential. In a global redesign project, aimed at minimising our packaging material and carbon emissions, we managed to reduce the size of our endoscope packaging.
Using Recycled Material
Because our planet’s resources are limited, we aim to develop solutions that need less to achieve more. Central to this aspiration is investigating the use of sustainable materials for our products. As a result, we introduced a new PlasmaBAG™ endoscope storage bagmade with 80% recycled polyethylene, started in 2022. This is holding the German eco label ‘Blue Angel’.
Reducing Waste
Delicate medical instruments like endoscopes need proper packaging to avoid damage during transportation. However, packaging materials become waste. We are proud that we were able to downsize our packaging, resulting in 33% less cardboard used. As a positive side-effect of our smaller packaging, we could significantly reduce the use of cushioning material as well, with no less than 69%. A win‑win situation.
Reducing and Replacing Plastic
A large part of the plastic produced globally ends up in landfills, rivers and oceans. This is the reason why we want to reduce or replace plastic as much as possible and use recyclable alternatives where we see fit. The cushioning material we use to protect our goods is made of recyclable and lightweight, non-fluorocarbon, foamed polyethylene. And, because of our smarter packaging, we now need significantly less PE foam as well. We also replaced the polypropylene (PP) tray with a cardboard tray that is partly made from recycled paper. And we continue looking for ways to enhance our packaging even further.
Reducing Energy Consumption
Drying and storing reprocessed endoscopes can be a time consuming and energy-intensive procedure. Regular solutions need long drying cycles and continuous medical air and heat supply for storage, which involves non‑stop electricity consumption. With our latest drying and storage system innovation PlasmaTYPHOON™+ we managed to significantly reduce energy consumption while improving efficiency. One PlasmaTYPHOON+ system reduces the endoscope drying and storage procedure from hours to only 1 to 3 minutesand offers ‘zero-energy’ storage for up to 31 days, significantly reducing the overall electricity consumption.
Refurbishing Used Parts
To extend product life cycles we have always offered repair services. With the aim of making our repair processes more sustainable and focusing on ‘reduce and reuse’, we also refurbish parts from discarded endoscopes and processors and use these for repairs. By repairing tens of thousands of medical devices globally each year and refurbishing printed circuit boards (PCB) as well as thousands of camera components (CCD) for reuse, we help save natural resources and reduce waste.
Protecting a precious Resource
From melting glaciers to polluted rivers or plastic in the oceans, water demands we treat it with respect. We are constantly looking for ways to reduce our water consumption and have embedded this aim in our Fundamental Environmental Policies globally.
Improving Hygiene in Endoscopy
Patient health and safety is central to everything we do at PENTAX Medical. We actively contribute to the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases such as cancer. Through our hygiene commitment we aim to reduce the risk of cross contamination during medical procedures.
By providing a comprehensive hygiene solution that offers the power of choice, we ensure we have the right solution for each patient and reinforce our commitment to improving patient safety and infection prevention in endoscopy. Our products aim to minimize infection, our processes are optimized to ensure the best reprocessing outcome and with our partnerships we are creating new standards in hygiene together.
Educating Healthcare Professional
In healthcare, knowledge is everything. We see it as our responsibility to ensure the continuous development and training of healthcare professionals. At PENTAX Medical, our educational programs ensure that talented medical professionals can learn from the best and take advantage of the latest insights in medical care. Our greatest reward is being able to foster the next generation of experts in endoscopy. Most of our programmes are accessible globally
Our Forward Academy educational programs provide a platform to share and gain knowledge about advanced treatments and medical procedures. It also offers the most promising young doctors a comprehensive and longterm mentoring program.
Equal Opportunities
As a responsible international company, promoting equality is a natural expression of our philosophy. Equality of opportunity is a basic human right, and we treat it as such. We have pledged to support fair employment opportunities and benefits for everyone – and we live that commitment. For example, to increase the representation of women in managerial positions, we conduct female leadership training, managerial training, role model lectures and networking activities.
Supply Chain Management & Human Rights
PENTAX Medical is deeply committed to ensuring that human rights are respected throughout our supply chains. We conduct thorough risk assessments to identify and address potential human rights violations.
This proactive approach includes engaging with suppliers to ensure they understand and comply with our standards, and taking corrective actions when necessary.
We continuously monitor our supply chain practices, using tools like Ethixbase360 to maintain high standards and address any emerging risks. Our commitment to human rights extends beyond our immediate suppliers, encompassing all levels of our supply network to ensure ethical practices are upheld throughout.
Basic Policy
As a business unit of the HOYA Group, PENTAX Medical operates globally with manufacturing facilities worldwide. To sustainably enhance corporate value, it is crucial to uphold high standards of product safety and quality, adhere to laws and regulations, and protect human rights both within the Company and across its supply chains. Proper management of supply chains is essential for this goal. Major suppliers must sign and comply with the HOYA Supplier Code of Conduct. Additionally, key suppliers are regularly visited and inspected, with assistance provided as needed to support improvements.
Supplier Human Rights Due Diligence
To increase transparency in our supply chain and ensure that we only work with suppliers who respect human rights, we have adopted a holistic due diligence approach. For more information, please see our Human Rights for Supply Chain Statement.
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HOYA Supplier Code of Conduct
HOYA, as a group of companies, has established a set of principles that guide our every decision and action. In accordance with these principles, all employees as well as the management of HOYA are absolutely committed to legal compliance and ethical practices.
All providers of goods and services, including but not limited to suppliers, vendors, contractors, consultants, and agents (all hereinafter referred to as “Suppliers”), who do business with HOYA’s worldwide entities must comply with this Supplier Code of Conduct. At a minimum, suppliers must also require their next‑tier suppliers to acknowledge and implement this code.
Fundamental to this code is the understanding that a business, in all of its activities and at any time, must operate in full compliance with the laws, rules, and regulations of the countries in which it operates. HOYA expects the suppliers to abide by such general rule as a basis and precondition for the business relationship.
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Supplier Audits
Key suppliers are audited regularly or as needed, following the quality assurance protocols specific to each business segment.
Modern Slavery Statement
In compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, PENTAX Medical publishes a statement detailing the actions taken to identify and eliminate slavery and human trafficking within its operations and supply chains.
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Responses to Conflict Minerals
With the cooperation of its suppliers, PENTAX Medical avoids using any minerals sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo or its neighboring countries that are classified as conflict minerals under Section 1502 of the U.S. Dodd‑Frank Act. We request our suppliers to adhere to the HOYA Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes this policy. Key suppliers are also asked to participate in our conflict minerals survey using the Conflict Minerals Reporting Template (CMRT) provided by the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI).
Previously conducted within the Information Technology business, this survey was expanded to a Company-wide initiative in fiscal 2020. We will continue to collaborate with our suppliers on initiatives, including identifying smelters, to ensure that mineral procurement is limited to those compliant with the Responsible Minerals Assurance Program (RMAP).
