Skip to:Emissions Intensity, Hazardous Materials, Environmental Events, Ergonomic Injuries, Motor Vehicle Collisions
Lilly has set five goals we intend to achieve by 2010 to reduce our environmental footprint and increase worker safety. The five goals reflect issues of significant public concern (for example, reducing energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions) or where we saw opportunities to significantly improve performance (for example, reducing the ergonomic injury rate). We continuously monitor our progress against those goals and report our efforts to senior management and the public.
As part of our vision of achieving world-class HSE performance, Lilly plans to set new goals that reflect an even greater commitment to natural resource conservation. These goals will be established in the second half of 2008.
Energy Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Lilly has set a goal of reducing our energy intensity [normalized to sales] and greenhouse gas emissions intensity [normalized to sales] by one-third by 2010 [compared to a 2003 baseline]. As of 2006, we have achieved a 21 percent reduction in energy intensity and expect to exceed our initial goal. Our achievement can be attributed to extensive efforts at our manufacturing sites and our corporate center to search for energy reduction opportunities and implement projects to reduce energy usage.
While manufacturing pharmaceuticals is less energy-intensive than making many other products, Lilly’s operations are relatively energy-intensive due to the nature of our processes and products. As a leader in biotechnology medicines, we use biological processes such as fermentation to produce several products. These processes use more energy and water, and generate more waste than many other production techniques. In addition, while some companies outsource their fermentation production, we do our own in order to maintain control of the sensitive processes and ultimate product quality.
As a result, we are identifying opportunities to reduce our energy consumption based on a multipart strategy that includes:
- an energy policy
- an engineering standard for energy-efficient design
- grassroots site energy teams that identify reduction projects and initiatives
- an energy assessment process
- a $10 million annual Energy and Waste Reduction Fund to finance energy-related capital projects
Some of the successful projects include a co-generation facility at one manufacturing site, lighting retrofits, and installation of high-efficiency chiller systems.
We track both direct and indirect GHG emissions from our operations. Direct emissions include those from manufacturing and non-manufacturing facilities, and distribution and sales mileage. Indirect emissions, which compose about 69 percent of our total GHG emissions, represent the quantity of GHGs emitted by off-site electric and gas utilities, and other service providers engaged in activities on our behalf, such as off-site wastewater treatment and waste disposal, and employee travel.
Because our GHG emissions are linked to energy usage, our progress towards meeting our energy reduction goal shapes our progress in meeting GHG emission reductions. GHG emissions intensity has decreased by 19 percent from 2003 to 2006, and we believe we will achieve our goal of reducing GHG emissions by one-third by 2010.
Since April 2006, one of our manufacturing facilities in the United Kingdom has purchased imported electricity (to meet about 82 percent of the total site needs) from a renewable energy source that produces zero carbon emissions. The facility pays a small premium for this service. The other 18 percent of the site’s electricity needs is provided by an efficient onsite combined heat and power plant that runs primarily on natural gas.
Reducing hazardous material purchases through Green Chemistry
Our goal is to cut hazardous material purchases normalized by sales by one-third by 2010, compared with those in 2003. In 2005, our hazardous material purchases were 37 percent below the 2003 baseline due to efficiency gains, solvent recovery, changes in our product mix, and supply chain decisions. This number may fluctuate year-to-year due to factors such as bulk raw material inventory and purchase cycles.
We believe that the most significant HSE improvements result from designing new products and processes to minimize HSE impacts from the start. This concept is described by the term “green chemistry,” an approach which drives an intrinsic focus on reducing material and resource inputs during the development of the manufacturing process, with an emphasis on using a smaller amount of hazardous materials.
Our scientists and engineers work to apply the most up-to-date science when designing our medicine production processes, evaluating attributes that predict the future HSE burden of a process, along with more traditional criteria such as yield, quality, cost, and equipment needs.
To accomplish this, we have established material use efficiency standards at critical steps in the product development process, including the E-factor, a ratio of material used per unit of active pharmaceutical ingredient produced. We evaluate the E-factor at key development milestones. If the standard is not met at the checkpoint, management review is triggered.
These standards, which we believe are unique in the industry, are driving improvements in process efficiency. For example, a recent improvement to a process in development will reduce hazardous material usage by more than 80 percent, saving more than 3 million kilograms of materials needed per year. The process change will also eliminate the need for 6 million liters of water per year.
Environmental Events
In 2003, we established a metric for “serious environmental events,” defined as a significant regulatory compliance event; an event that results in a complaint from an agency or the public; an event with the potential to create an impairment to aquatic life, wildlife, or human life; or an agency enforcement action. Our goal is zero environmental events by 2010. We had reduced environmental events from 13 in 2003 to three in 2005 for several reasons, including enhanced awareness at our sites about controlling environmental events by reducing the variability in our operations; environmental hazard reviews of key operations; capability assessments that resulted in improved processes; and better root-cause analysis of events when they occur. In 2006, environmental events increased to five.
Ergonomics
The leading cause of serious workplace injuries at Lilly, affecting all business units globally, is ergonomic factors (workplace conditions that pose a risk of musculoskeletal injury). Lilly continues to implement Ergo Answers, a comprehensive ergonomic injury reduction initiative. This program focuses on training employees, raising employee awareness, conducting proactive ergonomic assessments, and reducing or eliminating the greatest ergonomic risk within Lilly facilities.
Our goal is to reduce serious ergonomic injuries by 50 percent by 2010 compared with a 2003 baseline. In 2006, Lilly experienced a 23-percent decrease in lost time associated with ergonomic injury cases and an 11-percent decrease in serious ergonomic injuries. We have improved performance in the latter indicator by 21 percent since 2003.
In 2006, we conducted more than 6,000 workplace ergonomic assessments focused on our administrative functions, where ergonomic issues are commonplace but awareness of them is low. In 2007, we will continue to focus on improvements within our administrative offices. We are also beginning to engage our sales force of approximately 5,000 people in the U.S. with a pilot program that addresses the particular challenges of the mobile work force—including maintaining good ergonomics while driving and lifting equipment in and out of vehicles. We plan to begin implementing similar programs outside the U.S. in 2008. We expect to conduct assessments in 2007 at a similar pace to 2006 and we also are identifying additional areas to minimize work-related ergonomic injuries.
As we continue to educate our sales work force, we anticipate that we may see a short-term ergonomic injury rate increase as our employees become more aware of and consistent in reporting injuries.
Motor Vehicle Safety
Another area of concern is work-related injuries due to motor vehicle accidents. At Lilly, we are working to heighten awareness of motor vehicle safety. Lilly’s eight-element Lilly Motor Vehicle Safety (MVS) Program is the cornerstone for our improvement in the U.S. and other countries. Our goal is to attain a one-third reduction in collisions per million miles by 2010 through implementation of motor vehicle safety programs in our top 10 sales affiliates, compared with the baseline year of 2005. So far, we have achieved a 7-percent reduction.
In 2006, we expanded our MVS program by 23 additional affiliates and increased management review. The number of collisions per million miles driven in the U.S. decreased by 4 percent compared with 2005, and by 7 percent for the top 10 Lilly affiliates. We attribute this improved MVS performance to heightened awareness among our sales associates and more consistent commitment by sales management. In 2007, we plan to continue supporting 33 affiliates in advancing MVS by increasing management review.
