On 18 September 2026, Prof. Moritz Göldner spoke at the 78th Congress of the German Society of Urology (DGU) in Düsseldorf. In the sustainability plenary, he gave the talk “Is standardization a key to greater sustainability? A data-driven analysis of 213,000 surgeries”. The DGU has made sustainability one of its core topics. Congress president Prof. Susanne Krege co-chaired the plenary. Other talks covered the recycling of medical devices and the role of networks in the transformation, and the DGU Sustainability Award 2026 was presented.
Operating rooms consume considerably more energy and produce more waste than other hospital areas, and single-use surgical textiles such as gowns and drapes make up a large share of that waste. Together with Sana Einkauf & Logistik and Medline, the study analyzed around 213,000 surgeries performed in 25 Sana hospitals in 2022. The life-cycle emissions of all single-use surgical textiles used were assessed, totaling almost 2,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalents.
Each surgery was then assigned a standardized set of gowns and drapes based on its OPS code, and this set was compared with actual consumption. Most general hospitals are already operating close to the optimum. In hospitals specializing in orthopedics and cardiology, however, the savings potential exceeds 20 percent. Standardization can therefore reduce emissions and cut costs without any upfront investment.
The results have been published open access in the journal Die Urologie. Amanda Baum from our group also contributed to the study. Moritz Göldner also discussed the question “single-use or reusable?” in the DGU podcast “UROlogisch!”; read more in our article Interview with Prof. Moritz Göldner on single-use vs. reusable medical products in the DGU podcast “UROlogisch!”.
