Outsourced manufacture

Third parties manufacture some key intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients on our behalf. Since 2005 we have been working with over thirty of our outsourcing partners to measure the environmental impact of this manufacturing activity. The measures we have selected at this time are waste production and CO2 emissions from energy use. This contribution from outsourced manufacture is not included in our SHE performance data currently.

We have determined that waste generated from the outsourced manufacturers surveyed is about 36% of that from our own activities; some 16.8 thousand tonnes in 2008 compared with a total of 47.0 thousand tonnes from our own manufacturing sites. Outsourced manufacturers recovered (including material recycle and incineration with energy recovery) 73% of the hazardous waste and 56% of the non-hazardous waste quantities.

CO2 emissions from energy used at the third party manufacturing premises surveyed amounted to 19,200 tonnes in 2008; about 5% of that from our own manufacturing sites. This may be lower than the equivalent waste figure due to the fact that the energy consumption data from our suppliers relate only to our products, whereas the energy use and emissions figures from our own facilities are aggregated for all activities on the sites, not just manufacture. 30% of the electricity used in the outsourced manufacture was obtained from renewable resources.

Although we believe we have captured data for more than 80% of the outsourced manufacture of key intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients for our established brands, we continue working to further improve the completeness, transparency and relevance of the data for future reports. We have this year made some changes to the data presented in the table below for previous years where we now have better data available. The differences between years probably reflect the improvements we have made in the data capture from our suppliers rather than any changing manufacturing patterns or resource efficiencies.

The understanding we gain from this exercise will inform our efforts to continuously improve the environmental performance of the manufacturing activities performed on AstraZeneca’s behalf.