Environmental stewardship and resilience
We minimise our footprint through climate action, water management, resource efficiency, and safe chemical use while strengthening resilience.
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Climate change
While we contribute to climate change by emitting greenhouse gases (GHG), we also see the need to respond to physical and transition risks and opportunities arising from climate change. Our climate action, therefore, involves both climate change mitigation and adaptation across our value chain.
We have several climate action initiatives in place, including:
Replacement of traditional fluorinated refrigerants with alternative natural refrigerants that have a lower global warming potential.
Improving energy efficiency through upgrading machinery and HVAC systems, installing modern heat recovery systems and heat pumps, and optimising air exchange rates in cleanrooms.
Purchase of renewable energy and install photovoltaic (PV) systems to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Optimising transport routes, requiring the use of biofuels in road transport where possible, and reviewing how we can use sea transport instead of air freight when delivering our products to customers.
Use of chemicals
Proper handling of chemicals is essential in pharmaceuticals for safety, product quality and environmental protection. We ensure the proper handling of chemicals in our research, development and production processes covering water, soil and air pollutants.
Water
The production of plasma-derived medicines requires large quantities of purified water, mainly for cleaning equipment and facilities. We track the water used in our operations and manage water-use efficiency, water quality and the handling of wastewater.
Neutralising wastewater with CO2
Our site in Vienna, Austria, and Springe, Germany, have facilities that run flue gas from steam boilers through wastewater to neutralise effluents. This process involves capturing CO2 from boiler fumes and using it to treat the chemical composition of the wastewater. This helps to both reduce the site's CO2 emissions and mitigate the impact of chemical emissions on water systems.
Resource use
Efficient resource management is key to minimising waste, optimising materials, and ensuring sustainable operations. We focus on the management of resources throughout their life cycle, including the use of recycled and reusable materials minimising waste, maximising resource efficiency and closing material loops.
Packaging and logistics optimisation
Across packaging and logistics, we use long-lasting plastic pallets or recycled wooden pallets and optimise pallet use — for example by increasing the quantity per pallet for shipments. We are also working with packaging suppliers to reduce the plastic content of packaging and take a circular approach in tertiary and secondary packaging, where possible. We require that all packaging maintains a high level of product safety and meets regulatory requirements.
Ethanol recycling
Ethanol is an important raw material for our production process. Our sites in Austria, France and Sweden take a circular approach to the use of ethanol through regeneration, which enables around 80-85% of ethanol to be recycled. The regeneration process involves recovering ethanol from an ethanol-water mixture at our ethanol distillation plants. Regenerated waste ethanol is then returned to our production sites.