At ZiboCare, we work actively and passionately with sustainability, inspired by the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. For us, it makes sense because several of the goals align directly with the agendas and values we already work with both internally and externally in our daily operations.
Sustainability is important to us because we want to contribute to a positive impact on the world. Therefore, we have developed a range of objectives across our value chain where we believe we can make a difference through our improvement.
At ZiboCare, we constantly strive to improve ourselves, as we believe this enables us to work ambitiously and dynamically while remaining sustainable. At ZiboCare, the Sustainable Development Goals are integrated into three focus areas:
Health for all
Responsible consumption and production
Education and knowledge sharing
At ZiboCare, we aim to make a difference every day. It is part of our DNA to contribute to a better, healthier everyday life by delivering durable, innovative solutions to the healthcare sector. Solutions that prevent, treat, and relieve – and most importantly, make a difference. We believe that health should be for everyone. This is a clear and distinct ambition for us, which we work diligently to translate into practice daily.
ZiboCare produces and sells products and solutions in health and care that cater to all different user groups for which each product is intended. All ZiboCare products consider the working environment of healthcare professionals without compromising the health and well-being of patients.
The working environment of healthcare professionals is specifically considered in all ZiboCare products. For example, we aim to help ensure a better ergonomic working environment for staff by reducing twists, turns, and heavy lifts, and thus less strain on the body. In this way, we and our products contribute to reduced sick days and related costs, as well as a higher quality of working life.
ZiboCare also has a strong focus on hygiene. Many of our products can be washed and/or disinfected, improving hygiene and preventing the spread of bacteria. Additionally, this helps extend the product's lifespan, as it can be used easily and safely again and again after cleaning.
In addition to our products within care, we also have many years of experience in developing products for sensory integration and stimulation. Our extensive range of sensory-stimulating products helps, for example, to create better body awareness and boundaries. This can contribute to improving sleep quality, creating calmness and well-being. Generally, the products help enhance mental well-being for both people with and without diagnoses.
The positive effects the products have also indirectly improve the staff's mental health, well-being, and working environment, as they provide patients with more energy, making them easier to handle in daily life.
The purpose of all our products is clear: To contribute to shorter hospital stays, less discomfort, and faster rehabilitation for the benefit of the individual patient. At the same time, hospitals and municipalities, etc., can save money, time, and resources by treating patients in ways that consider the workflows and well-being of healthcare professionals.
Our goal is to continue developing products that can contribute in new and innovative ways to a healthy working environment for healthcare professionals, as well as a safe and secure handling of patients with a focus on improving comfort and quality of life.
Internally at ZiboCare, we also work on creating the framework for a healthy workplace with good well-being across our value chain. We want an ethical workplace where everyone feels welcome and valued. Therefore, we also have a Code of Conduct for all our suppliers and partners, which includes the working environment as one of its primary topics, as well as an internal staff handbook that outlines all our regulations and guidelines.
We continuously work on initiatives to improve our working environment, which should help ensure that ZiboCare remains a good workplace for all our employees. Among other things, we look at initiatives to reduce sick days and prevent workplace accidents. We also have an employee representative who helps ensure a good working environment and complies with all Danish regulations regarding the working environment.
ZiboCare supports equality among its employees regardless of gender, ethnic origin, religious belief, or similar – both in terms of career opportunities and salary conditions. Employees are paid according to their qualifications, responsibilities, and the nature of their tasks, without regard to their gender, ethnic origin, religious beliefs, etc. Additionally, all employees are covered by health insurance and a mandatory pension scheme.
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At ZiboCare, our products are the focal point of our business. Our customers are often hospitals, care facilities, psychiatric institutions, and retail, and our products are used daily by many different user groups. It is therefore important to us that everyone can feel safe using our products – whether they are healthcare professionals or patients.
We also feel a responsibility to ensure that the products are designed, produced, transported, used, and recycled with the greatest possible consideration for the environment and sustainability. Therefore, we set high demands on the quality, materials, and production of all our products. We maintain this through our Code of Conduct and require documentation from all our partners so that their level of responsibility reflects ZiboCare's.
This is precisely why all ZiboCare's products are CE marked: they meet both our internal requirements and international standards and directives. We also have a sharp focus on environmental aspects of production and on ensuring that factory working conditions are top-notch. As part of our Code of Conduct, we also check that our suppliers are ISO14001 certified (Energy Environmental Management System). Alternatively, they must be able to provide documentation that they comply with ISO14001.
We increasingly see that, in relation to tenders, it is a requirement that a company has developed and implemented a well-functioning quality management system. As part of our quality management system, we ensure quality and consistency in production through close dialogue with all our suppliers. This includes an evaluation of our existing suppliers once a year.
It is important to us that our products can be used by everyone. Therefore, we use high-quality materials and also utilise certifications to ensure that our products are safe to use. We consider, among other things, allergen-friendliness in our products. Our foam products consist of a few but thoroughly tested materials. This reduces the risk of allergies and is therefore a healthier choice.
For all ZiboCare products that contain textiles, they must be Standard-100 by OEKO-TEX® certified, where possible. The Standard-100 by OEKO-TEX® certification is an international, voluntary, and independent labelling scheme for textiles. It is a guarantee to consumers that the product has been tested and complies with strict requirements regarding the presence of harmful substances that can be dangerous to both health and the environment. We have a goal to achieve more certifications where this makes sense in relation to our production and product range.
All ZiboCares products are tested and examined according to EU regulations before they are marketed. This ensures both citizens/patients and care staff can have full confidence in the product. In product development and in collaboration with suppliers and subcontractors, we always verify that they comply with the applicable product standards. This happens both before the product is marketed and is continuously checked afterwards.
From the design of the product to production, we also have a strong focus on the product's service life. Our products are made to be used. They are durable and easy to clean. This means that after thorough washing and/or cleaning, the majority of our products can be used by the same or new patients. This helps to extend the usage phase of the products in an easy and safe way.
The majority of our products are designed to be maintained or repaired if necessary. By ensuring maintenance as an option for our products, we reduce the need to replace them with a new product. We perform part of this service directly at ZiboCares' headquarters, thereby ensuring product quality – and your peace of mind – without the product losing value.
After the service life, we also focus on ensuring that our products are responsibly disposed of, and we indicate on each product whether components can be recycled and how they should be disposed of responsibly. We work internally and in collaboration with our suppliers to determine how we can best extend the product's lifecycle through a circular economy, where all or parts of the product are recycled or reused without compromising product quality.
At ZiboCare, we have our internal NIR-certified laundry, where we clean products to the highest hygienic standard while minimising both water and detergent consumption. In the laundry, we have therefore switched to other types of detergents, enabling us to reduce washing times, energy consumption, and wastewater volume. We also have our own treatment plant, which ensures that the water from our laundry is optimally purified. We focus on energy-efficient laundry machines and offer the option to recycle wash water.
Other focus areas are our efforts to reduce the use of chemicals in detergents and lower washing temperatures, without compromising hygiene. We prioritise this just as highly as our customers and partners, because hygiene should naturally be essential for everyone working in the healthcare sector.
ZiboCare has a clear objective to reduce our CO2 impact. We do this, among other things, by optimising our logistics, as we see many opportunities here to reduce our negative footprint. For example, we optimise with more direct deliveries from the factory to our customers, thereby avoiding extra trips to/from our warehouse. We also work with what we call "logical deliveries", where we plan our routes and transport very carefully. In this way, we save both more time and emit less CO2.
At the same time, we have continuously optimised and tightened our procurement planning. This has resulted in fewer product batches being flown home. Instead, more products are transported home by ship or train, which have a much smaller climate footprint.
At ZiboCare, we continuously assess whether it is possible to produce our products closer to our customers to reduce our CO2 impact further. The production of our high-volume items has already been brought back to Denmark, saving on long transport routes from, for example, France and Spain.
For products produced outside Denmark, we have, where possible, consolidated the production of different items at the same factories. In this way, we can optimise capacities in relation to transport, for example, by fully loading containers before transport.
Our focus on transport also involves continuously reducing the number of small deliveries from our warehouse to customers. We do this by actively encouraging more of our customers to order pallet deliveries. We strive to ensure that products and solutions take up as little space as possible during transport, enabling larger quantities to be shipped in the same container and reducing the footprint per product.
At ZiboCare, we use packaging to protect our products during shipping. This applies both when products are transported from our suppliers to our warehouse and when they are sent to our customers, ensuring recipients receive the products as expected upon arrival.
We continuously strive to rethink and improve the packaging of our products. This has led to using less single-use plastic when packing our foam mattresses, as they are flat-packed rather than rolled. This has also proven beneficial for the durability and firmness of the foam in the mattresses. To reduce waste and overconsumption, we set requirements and provide detailed guidelines to our suppliers regarding the products' packaging.
It is important to us that the products are safe to transport, but that the transport also occurs without unnecessary packaging or resources. ZiboCare transports many products and thus uses a lot of packaging, which is necessary for hygiene, durability, and product safety. We aim to constantly optimise in this area, in collaboration with our suppliers, to ensure responsible production throughout the entire value chain.
ZiboCare not only continuously develops the specific products and solutions we offer our customers. We also develop how we provide customers with access to solutions so that it best reflects their needs and resources.
A good example is our ZiboLease, a rental concept that lets customers rent instead of buying aids. This can, for example, be bariatric products that are used infrequently. The customer's advantages include that there is no actual investment, only rental, and there is less need for space to store the products. ZiboCare handles the storage.
In this way, we ensure that products are ready for use and that service is performed on the product after use, so it is ready to assist a new citizen or patient subsequently.
Additionally, ZiboCare actively works to extend the usage period of the products, for example, through the concept of "recycled aids", where our products are used in countries with different regulations, including a longer usage date for the individual product. This means that the products can be used after the Danish usage date has expired. Our products last well beyond this usage date and can therefore still be used safely and securely in accordance with the regulations of other countries.
For ZiboCare, knowledge, experience, and education are three fundamental pillars of good healthcare. Therefore, we have a goal of making knowledge and education freely accessible. By providing access to education and knowledge, we contribute to staff upskilling and, thereby, to better healthcare.
We contribute to this through seminars, webinars, and free access to our online learning platform ZiboCare Academy. ZiboCare Academy is an online knowledge and learning portal that healthcare professionals can freely use. We have gathered everything in one place so that staff can easily access the material—no matter where and when they need it. The idea behind ZiboCare Academy is to develop a place where we can provide healthcare professionals with a shortcut to learning, upskilling, and inspiration.
Here, we equip them with a wide range of video guides, including our many special mattresses, which are used across the country's municipalities and hospitals. With our guides, both healthcare professionals and patients benefit from optimised use of the special mattresses' functions. It is about the working environment for the staff and increased well-being for the patients.
ZiboCare also facilitates a network group for pressure ulcer specialists who regularly meet to share their knowledge and experience in preventing pressure ulcers. We find that the network group provides a framework for important and useful knowledge sharing, bringing new knowledge and experiences across the country.
Furthermore, all our consultants at ZiboCare are medically trained and up to date with the latest knowledge, which means they have the skills to teach and guide in the use of ZiboCare's products. Our consultants teach and guide in the use of ZiboCares products – both with individuals and with larger groups of healthcare professionals, gathered, for example, in hospital departments.
The subjects in our teaching and guidance can cover everything from product implementation to comprehensive advice and guidance for the individual or patient, as well as for the customer as a whole. All to contribute to the individual's learning and development.
Our customers are therefore assured professional support for specific patient issues. Our professional guidance is always needs-oriented, so in collaboration with the user, clinician, etc., we find the best possible solution and the right aid. After the training, the staff can apply their new knowledge in practice.
Together, we find the best possible solution for the benefit of both staff and patients. In that dialogue, skills, education, and knowledge sharing play a crucial role.
