Environmental Sustainability
In this section, we describe our commitment in key areas of environmental sustainability - managing our impact on climate change, managing our waste and understanding the potential impact of pharmaceuticals in the environment. More information about our work in these areas and in others, such as resource efficiency, biodiversity and emissions to air and water, can be found on our website, astrazeneca.com/responsibility.
Our current set of five-year targets and objectives takes us to the end of 2010. We are in the process of finalising a new environmental sustainability strategy, including associated targets and objectives, which will drive our continued commitment in this important area.
Climate change
We continue to work hard to manage our impact on climate change without compromising our ability to deliver new medicines that make a difference in important areas of healthcare.
We believe that our primary responsibility is to reduce our carbon footprint by, amongst other things, improving our energy efficiency and pursuing lower-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels. The use of carbon offset or other third party reduction credits to address residual emissions is something we will not consider as an alternative to driving our own efforts to reduce emissions.
In common with most businesses, our emissions arise from the energy we use at our facilities and from the various means of transport we use. Our carbon footprint is also affected by some of our respiratory therapies, specifically our pressurised metered dose inhaler (pMDI) products which rely on propellants such as hydrofluoroalkane, which is a greenhouse gas, to deliver the medicine to the airways. Patients who are unable to use our Turbuhaler dry powder inhaler, which does not require propellants, need these pMDI products. We believe that the expanded treatment choice and potential benefits that they offer outweigh the potential impact on the environment.
Greenhouse gas emissions1, 2
CO2-equivalents million tonnes
Index tonnes/$m sales
- Figures are calculated in line with the Greenhouse Gas (GhG) Protocol guidance (ghgprotocol.org).
Waste production1, 3
Total waste thousand tonnes
Index tonnes/$m sales
- 1
- Data exclude MedImmune.
- 2
- The 2008 and 2007 figures have been revised due to improved data capture.
- 3
- We have replaced the ozone depleting potential (ODP) KPI with waste production as we believe this is now a more meaningful KPI. ODP data continue to be published on our website, astrazeneca.com/responsibility.
We continue to drive the management of our carbon footprint across key areas of business activity. For example, recognising the significant global warming emissions from business road travel for sales and marketing activities, we are maintaining a strong focus in this area. We are working with our fleet management and leasing suppliers to introduce fleet reporting to track the CO2 emissions of new and existing fleet vehicles and are introducing CO2 caps on new car acquisitions in our major markets. We also continue to invest in advanced driver training to improve both safety and fuel efficiency associated with driving. Other areas in which we are pursuing further improvement include the implementation of green technology principles in our process design and exploration of the potential for further investment in low carbon and renewable energy options at our sites.
Our current climate change targets, approved by the Board in 2005, aim to ensure that our absolute emissions in 2010 will be no greater than they were at the start of the decade and 55% less than they were in 1990. This requires substantial efforts to be made across our business to produce, by the end of 2010, an absolute reduction of 12% in global warming emissions from all sources other than pMDIs, when compared with 2005. We have made good progress in recent years in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, in 2009, our total emissions from all sources were 9% lower than in 2008. For data on our performance over the last three years see above.
Across all our activity, we work with our partners to share learning and foster best practice. We are also increasingly participating in the global debate on what business can do to help mitigate global warming and adapt to the unavoidable consequences of climate change.
Waste management
The management of waste associated with our activities is another key element of our environmental sustainability strategy. We are working to reduce our total waste index to meet our 2010 improvement target (40% by the end of 2010 from a 2001/2002 reference point).
Our waste is categorised as 'hazardous waste' or 'other waste' according to national legislation, which varies in its definitions. The majority of our hazardous waste consists of solvent and aqueous streams from manufacturing activities. Other waste includes general waste from our facilities around the world.
Our primary objective is waste prevention. Where this is not practical, we focus on waste minimisation and appropriate treatment or disposal to maximise the reuse and recycling of materials, including energy recovery from the incineration of waste streams. Programmes designed to reduce the amount of waste we generate include the continual improvement of existing production processes, minimising the environmental burden of new production processes under development, integration of environmental considerations in purchasing and internal waste awareness programmes. For data on our performance over the last three years see above.
Pharmaceuticals in the environment
We understand, and take seriously, concerns about the detection of trace amounts of pharmaceutical residues in the environment. We work continuously to improve our understanding of the science and how pharmaceuticals interact with the environment and the risks that they may pose.
The presence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the environment (PIE) resulting from patient excretion is an inevitable result of the way most current medicines work: pharmaceuticals need to be stable enough to have a useful shelf-life and oral dosage forms must be robust enough, in most cases, to pass through the stomach intact.
We are committed to identifying any potential adverse effects on the environment that our medicines might have and responsibly balancing these against the benefits that these medicines bring to patients' lives.
We actively engage and partner with other pharmaceutical companies, NGOs, scientists, regulators, patients and prescribers to share learning and experience and to promote responsible management of PIE issues, in line with current scientific knowledge.
Dedicated research
The levels of pharmaceutical residues detected in the environment are generally extremely low and are unlikely to pose a risk to human health. For example, the levels detected in drinking water are so low that, to ingest one single patient dose, someone would have to drink more water than is possible in a lifetime. However, whilst improving all the time, understanding of the potential for long-term effects of PIE, for example to aquatic life, requires further research.
This is an ongoing priority for our scientists at our Environmental Laboratory in Brixham, UK, who are at the forefront of this field of science, working both independently and in collaboration with other companies, leading academics and regulatory bodies to advance PIE-related research. Work at Brixham is focused on improving our understanding of the processes leading to the breakdown and removal of pharmaceutical residues in sewage treatment plants and the wider environment, and improving the predictability of the potential adverse environmental effects through the development of novel ecotoxicological test methodologies.
Product stewardship
We conduct environmental risk assessments for all our new, and many of our established, products in accordance with applicable regulations. Going beyond the regulatory requirements, we have also reviewed the environmental risk assessments for many of our older established products and, where appropriate, have undertaken additional voluntary testing to refine the assessments.
We have also introduced Environmental Risk Management Plans that will accompany all new medicines throughout their life-cycle. These plans enable all available environmental data to be taken into account at key decision points during drug discovery and development, and to provide early warning of medicines that could pose a potential risk to the environment.
We make environmental risk data for our existing products publicly available via the Swedish Doctors Prescribing Guide website (fass.se), using the voluntary disclosure system introduced by the Swedish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry. AstraZeneca has a leading role in developing the guidance for this activity.
