Manufacturing


Sustainability in mind


emissions, water and electricity. Coordinated effort is required across disciplines, from packaging to logistics to patient engagement. Elly Earls speaks to Iris Obermueller, Merck Healthcare’s global director of environment, health and safety, to find out why the human factor is so important to building sustainable practices, and why nothing is going to change overnight.


Reaching carbon neutrality by 2040 will require a lot more of pharmaceutical companies than reducing CO2


manufacturing facilities. Companies must consider everything from logistics to packaging materials to the chemical processes involved in the earliest stages of drug development – and even the energy used to send emails between employees. But in an industry governed by tight regulations across every element of the supply chain, making meaningful changes to any one of these processes cannot be done overnight. Sustained, coordinated effort is required, and not only


B World Pharmaceutical Frontiers / www.worldpharmaceuticals.net


uilding a sustainable global pharmaceutical operation extends far beyond the reduction of CO2


emissions, water and electricity in


from the obvious stakeholders. Pharmacists, couriers, employees and the patients themselves all play an important role. Merck Healthcare is taking a three- pronged approach to reducing its environmental impact: products, logistics and patients. While each area has its own dedicated initiatives, they all play into one another and are geared towards the company’s one overarching goal – to reach carbon neutrality by 2040. Iris Obermueller, who has been global director of environment, health and safety at Merck Healthcare for the past eight years, says it’s been a process even to reach the point where the environment is


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