AstraZeneca Corporate Responsibility - Climate change

Prior to the merger of Astra and Zeneca in 1999, the combined greenhouse gas emissions from the heritage companies had already been reduced by 36% from their 1990 value as a result of actions taken to reduce ozone-depleting substances. In the mid 1990s, the dominant climate change issue became the release of greenhouse gases, which led to the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

From 2001, we began to take action firstly to stabilise and then to reduce the emissions of CO2 from our facilities. This was achieved by a combination of energy efficiency measures, investment in combined heat and power plants and purchasing energy from low or zero carbon sources. By 2003, the upward trend in emissions from our facilities had been arrested and by 2005 emissions had fallen back to their 2001 level. Our launch in 2007 of Symbicort Rapihaler (pMDI) in the US, where over 30 million people suffer from asthma, has led to an associated increase in HFA emissions as more and more patients benefit from the new medicine. Nevertheless, since the company was formed in 1999, our absolute emissions of greenhouse gases from all sources, including our products, has fallen by a further 47% and ozone depleting gases by 95%.

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 continue to invest in advanced driver training to improve both safety and efficiency associated with driving and we are increasingly using a range of hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. We have also eliminated the use of ozone depleting substances in fire protection systems and adopted a policy to replace the small amounts remaining in use for refrigeration at our sites. We will eliminate all such uses as soon as feasible and, at a minimum, in a timeframe consistent with legislative requirements.

Other areas in which we are driving further improvement include:

Implementation of green technology principles in our process design.
Exploring the potential for further investment in low carbon and renewable energy options at our sites.
Further investment in greener energy supply from external power suppliers.
Implementation of further energy conservation programmes, particularly related to fume cupboards in laboratories.

Alongside this, we also continuously seek to use external opportunities to share learning and foster best practice. For example, as part of prioritising the selection of goods transport partners on the basis of their reliability, quality and internal safety, health and environmental management, we take into consideration the efficiency of their air and road fleets. In 2008, AstraZeneca, in conjunction with our European road freight and logistics provider, was recognised in the European Outsourcing Awards for the success of a new initiative to co-load our product into vehicles with product from other companies - minimising vacant space and significantly reducing costs and environmental impact.