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I have today, as I do roughly once a year, discussed sustainability programs in the pharmaceutical industry with students at The Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University. Interesting and a lot of fun!
The Ångström Laboratory
My presentation is part of a course on Environmental Management Systems, so I tried to explain our sustainability programs from the system perspective. Starting out with a general background on why sustainability programs in general, and environmental programs specifically, are necessary. Going into several aspects (or potential problems) that those programs need to address. And then moving over to follow-up and corrections that may be needed to secure environmental improvements over time. The outline is quite similar to the presentations and discussions I regularly do at SLU (see for instance these two blog posts: From March 10, 2011 and from Feb 19, 2009.
To describe the great numbers of environmental aspects that needs to be assessed I used a series of slides where a full picture of aspects are built up step-by-step: From your own manufacturing facility, looking back into your suppy-chain, looking downstream following your products out on the market, and finally of course also adding the R&D-operations to give the full picture. Below you see all the slides condensed into one… Quite a busy slide I have to say…
We had good discussions, and especially during the last 15 minutes when the students were given the task of identifying potential environmental aspects on a made-up company called Juicy Drinks Inc. The students should, based on the knowledge they had recieved on environmental management systems (e.g. ISO 14001) perform an “initial environmental review”. So, which environmental aspects do you think Juicy Drinks Inc has to address?
Perhaps we could get some good interactivity going here. Please provide your suggestions…
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It is now just one week left before the UN climate change conference, COP-17, starts in Durban in South Africa. You probably remember the very lively discussions, and very high expectations, before the COP-15 meeting in Copenhagen 2009, and the not so intense discussions prior to and during the COP-16 meeting in Cancun. The level of discussions right now prior to the Durban meeting feels pretty much identical with the Cancun pre-meeting debate. Low expectations, and not very much of a debate at all in general public media. This surprises me to some degree. The threats to nature and human health from global warming is not smaller today than two years ago, most likely actually the opposite. More research has been published showing where we most likley are heading. And a lot of activities are ongoing in industry to manage energy and climate change issues. So why do we not see activities on the political level? Is it so simple that the financial problems around the world takes all focus from our political leaders?
Regardless of the outcome of COP-17 (and my expectations are extremely small), I am convinced that enterprises around the world will continue working with their energy and climate change agenda. It has become a very natural part of the environmental sustainability programs. And in several cases the programs are not only successful from an environental point of view but also from a financial point of view. Decreased energy consumption, changes of energy sources, and other activities very often make good business sense! I would be very surprised if that is not also true for society as such…
To get inspired, please read the IVL report on a Swedish low carbon scenario around year 2050. Please also read about Pfizer’s energy and climate change projects on our global webpage. Projects that have helped us to decrease our emissions of green house gases significantly since the beginning of 2000.
Green house gas emissions
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We have had a very interesting day at the Pfizer plant in Strängnäs today. Politicians from Jönköping County Council visited the plant to listen and discuss our experiences from LEAN manufacturing and from our environmental and sustainability programs. Combined discussions of LEAN and environmental management make a lot of sense to me.
Regardless from which perspectives you look upon LEAN - e.g. right first time, total quality management, 5S, reduction of waste, and continuous improvement - the connections to good environmnetal management is obvious. A perfect match is found between the LEAN tools commonly known as 3M (the Japanese words Muda, Muri, and Mura - or in English Waste, Overburden, and Unevenness) and health, safety and environmentral management.
The Pfizer Strängnäs plant has worked with LEAN for several years, and as you probably know already, their environmental management programs also have been in place for very long time. They received their first external “certification” already back in mid 90-ies (EMAS, Eco-Management and Audit Scheme), and are today certified to ISO 14001, ISO 9001, OHSAS 18001. Today’s agenda hence was a combination of LEAN-experiences, a site tour to visualize the work processes, Pfizer’s and the pharma industry’s general programs around sustainability, and our local environmental, health and safety management programs.
Sharing experiences and thoughts makes us all better! Thanks for a valuable day of discussions!
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The All Party Committee on Environmental Objectives’ expert group for Pharmaceuticals and Environmental issues met on Friday (Nov 11). It is a broadly assembled group, with representatives from all relevant stakeholders in society. This allows for very interesting and “energetic” discussions. Very stimulating! Friday’s meeting included discussions on the balance between international actions and national ones. Which relevant proposals for new objectves, both global as well as national, within the area of “A Non-Toxic Environment” should the expert group provide to the All Party Committee? Not very surprsing, discussions of course included MPA’s proposal on inclusion of environmental requirements into GMP, and also another MPA proposal from their report in Dec 2009, namely the use of Environmental Risk Assessments (ERAs) in the risk/benefit-evaluation in the authorization process for human medicines. But we also discussed green economic incentives within the pricing and reimbursement system which is being under review by Sofia Wallström presently. The All Party Committee cannot of course comment to much on the issue since it is being under review, but the issue should nevertheless not be left completely without comments. Another national topic discussed in the group is the potantial need for additional treatment steps in waste water treatment facilities. Such societal investments should not only be benefical for any pharmaceutical residues in the waste water but also for “chemicals of concern”, e.g. endocrine disruptors.
It will be interesting to see how the discussions continue and over the coming months, and to see the final document from the All Party Commitee on Environmental Objectives on June 15, 2012.
Stay tuned for more information as the process continues.
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The Board of the MistraPharma project met at Umeå University today. Host for the meeting was Mats Tysklind, one of the project managers of MistraPharma. The Board meeting itself was fairly fast today. We were all of course very pleased that Mistra has granted an additional 4 years to the project, and the important decision items on the meeting was Program Plan, list of deliverables, and budget. Although those discussions of course were interesting they could not compete with the laboratory tour after lunch.
It was a real pleasure to follow Mats and his coworkers Jerker Fick and Richard Lindberg to the laboratories of the Environmental & Biogeochemistry group at the Chemistry Department, at KBC (Kemiskt-Biologiskt Centrum) at the university.
Richard in action
Richard demonstrated some developed methods to isolate pharmaceutical residues from waste water. Some of the critical activities for MistraPharma’s success that have been undertaken by Mats and his coworkers are the development of analytical methods allowing for testing of 120 APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingridients) in water samples and extracts. We were all impressed while listening to Richard and Jerker presenting their work. In the picture below you see Mats and Christina Rudén (MistraPharma’s program director) listening to Jerker’s explanations.
Jerker, Mats and Christina
Richard then took us in to the analytical laboratory where they have their LC (liquid chromatography)and MS (mass spectroscopy) equipment. It was fascinating to see the enormous efficiency increase in testing, going from the lab bench into full automation.
Richard proudly presents...
We then got an update of some of the most recent results from their work. Very interesting data I can promise. Looking forward to see the final publications!
Thanks to Mats, Jerker, and Richard for an interesting day at the research laboratory. It is just to seldom that I put my shoes in the laboratory nowadays…
Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg kommer att ta upp aktiviteter som vi själva gör inom ramen för det vi kallar ”ansvarsfullt företagande” men som i den vardagliga debatten ofta benämns CSR. Jag som bloggar heter Bengt Mattson och arbetar som CSR- och miljöchef på Pfizer AB. 