DASH-D: From Data to Action — Enabling Sustainable Choices and Responsible Implementation of Medical Disposables in Dutch Healthcare
Research Line: Circular Safe Hospitals / Seed call: September 2025
Dutch healthcare relies heavily on disposable medical products, resulting in substantial carbon emissions, material use and waste streams. National initiatives such as the NFU high-impact disposables list, the PROMEZA tool and the Green Deal Sustainable Healthcare 3.0 set an ambitious target: a 50% reduction in raw material use by 2030. Despite this momentum, two persistent barriers remain. First, healthcare professionals lack accessible and reliable ways to compare disposable, reusable and recyclable products on sustainability grounds. Second, even where evidence exists, adoption is often hindered by procurement rules, professional norms, liability concerns and hygiene routines.
Recent research indicates that reusable products are often more sustainable, but robust, easy-to-use decision tools are scarce, and translating sustainability evidence into everyday clinical practice remains challenging. DASH-D addresses these gaps by explicitly linking data, decision-making and implementation in Dutch healthcare.
Objectives and Route to Impact
DASH-D adopts a two-part, transdisciplinary approach to turn sustainability data into actionable decisions and routine practice.
Part 1: Decision Support
The project develops a validated quick-scan framework that identifies the most critical sustainability properties of medical disposables, including material composition, presence of electronics, transport, reusability and end-of-life pathways. Drawing on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research and national sector analyses, these properties are weighted using the Best–Worst Method, with direct input from clinicians and procurement experts. The resulting decision tree and minimum viable product (MVP) tool will be tested on at least 25% of the NFU high-impact disposables list and benchmarked against existing LCAs to ensure scientific robustness.
Part 2: From Advice to Action
To ensure uptake, the project applies implementation science and discourse analysis to examine how routines, professional identities and communication practices influence adoption. This results in a practical roadmap and communication guidelines that support healthcare professionals and procurement teams in embedding sustainable choices into daily workflows.
Together, these outputs enable informed, responsible and feasible implementation of more sustainable medical disposables across Dutch healthcare.
Contribution to Cross-EWUU Collaboration
DASH-D brings together complementary expertise from Wageningen University & Research, UMC Utrecht, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and societal partners including Milieu Platform Zorg and Stichting Stimular. The collaboration integrates environmental sciences, decision sciences, clinical practice, social sciences and implementation expertise. By combining academic rigour with strong sector embedding, the project ensures that outputs are both scientifically sound and directly applicable in healthcare practice, strengthening cross-EWUU collaboration around circular and safe hospitals.
Team
- Negin Salimi – Wageningen University (Principal Investigator)
- Judith de Bree – Milieu Platform Zorg
- Koen Dittrich – Milieu Platform Zorg
- Maelle Lustig – Milieu Platform Zorg
- Mignon Vieveen – Wageningen University
- Marijke Hegger – Stichting Stimular
- Merel Segers – The Footprinters
- Joyce Browne – UMC Utrecht
- Mario Veen – HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht
- Bas van Vliet – Wageningen University
- Wei-Shan Chen – Wageningen University
- Yifan Yang – Wageningen University