Peter Schurrenberger, Chief Safety, Health and Environment Officer at Roche, discusses their recent recognition as a leader for corporate action on climate change by the CDP.
Roche has recently been recognised as a leader for corporate action on climate change for the second consecutive year, does this reflect the importance that Roche places upon tackling climate change?
First of all, we are thankful for this recognition and we see it as an incentive to continue our efforts and improve wherever we can. We are committed to bringing more innovative medicines to patients around the world and to reducing our environmental impact as we do so.
We have adopted an integrated management approach that aligns our environmental strategy, objectives and targets with our overall business strategy. Our long-term goal is to reduce total environmental impacts per employee by 10% by 2019.
For us, environmental sustainability means protecting the future by making the right choices today in an environment where water is increasingly scarce, natural resources are constrained and biodiversity is declining. In short, we are helping protect those resources by improving environmental efficiency in our own operations.
And as part of our overall sustainability efforts, we are looking beyond Roche and are also involving our suppliers and other partners to continuously improve the environmental performance of our products along the value chain. Therefore, we will focus on environmental sustainability from acquiring raw materials through product use and disposal.
What methods has Roche taken to become more environmentally friendly? How are these important?
Environmental protection is integrated into the business strategy and when making important decisions, sustainability issues, such as climate changes, are taken into account. There are several methods we have taken to become more environmentally friendly:
First, we have adopted a decentralised approach, making our Roche sites accountable for environmental matters while coordinated by a central Safety, Security, Health and Environmental protection (SHE) function.
Also, we employ a Group-wide environmental protection management system including our collaborations along the value chain to prevent, avoid and lessen environmental impacts. Furthermore, we closely follow international developments in various areas of environmental protection, allowing us to implement the necessary measures to comply with upcoming laws and regulations wherever we operate.
We have established company-wide environmental guidelines, policies and directives. For example, in 2006, Roche implemented a Directive on Energy Conservation, which is designed to ensure that all decision-making at Roche is congruent to our position on energy and global warming and supports efficient, appropriate and cost-effective energy use. The Directive also stipulates energy efficiency standards and prescribes minimum energy performance levels. Binding for all parts of the organization, the Directive requires that all at Roche make energy conservation part of our daily business.
Lastly, auditing Roche sites worldwide helps us to monitor our current state as well as progress.
What is the plan going forward to ensure that Roche maintains this record of being recognised for its work on climate change?
We believe, continuing what we have been doing for the last 20 plus years will help us stay on top of developments. Therefore, we need to make sure we stay informed about modern technologies, continue to build energy efficient buildings, enforce our environmental guidelines, policies and directives as well as anchor environmental goals in our business strategy.
For Roche, it is not about winning awards, it is about doing what is right for the environment, the societies that live within this environment as well as sustainability as a whole. This recognition tells us that we are on the right path and that hopefully our measures to reducing the company's footprint will have a positive impact.
Roche has stated that it aims for 20% of its total energy usage to be derived from sustainable sources by 2020. Is this target achievable and how far have you progressed towards it?
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