Two of the world’s largest companies make business and the world greener
Sustainability applies across all organizations, from universities to industry, and many of the biggest life science and pharmaceutical companies support sustainability initiatives. “At BASF, sustainability is anchored in our corporate strategy and organization,” says Charlene Wall-Warren, director, sustainability (North America), BASF (Florham Park, N.J.). “With sustainable products and services, we create competitive advantages for both BASF and our customers.”
Sustainability is at the heart of Johnson & Johnson’s (New Brunswick, N.J.) business philosophy. Philip Dahlin, global sustainability director, says, “We are using our Citizenship & Sustainability (C&S) programs to help drive a new vision of health, where what we do in social and environmental responsibility becomes a natural extension of our business and supports our mission of helping people everywhere live longer, healthier, happier lives.”
To provide a complete sustainability package, Johnson & Johnson’s C&S programs focus on several objectives. One, says Dahlin, is to “help people live healthier lives by providing better access and care in more places around the world.” These programs also aim to use fewer resources in smarter ways to create a healthy environment. The company also “teams up with partners and employees to create a culture of health and well-being,” Dahlin notes. That makes a complete package that forms the basis of Johnson & Johnson’s 2020 C&S goals.
When big companies improve their sustainability, everyone benefits. As Dahlin explains, “We are focused on significantly reducing our climate impacts and reducing supply-chain risks associated with water, as well as advancing the sustainable design of our products with a focus on recyclability and circularity.” He adds, “Through our commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), we are looking to raise awareness around the connections between environmental health and human health and develop partnerships that will improve environmental health.”
BASF’s big initiatives
Big industry and sustainability can prosper side by side, if the companies build sustainability into their business models. BASF’s Geismar Verbund site in Louisiana uses advanced techniques to safely produce chemicals on a 2500-acre facility that includes the Mississippi River’s shore, a deer reserve and oak trees. (Image courtesy of BASF SE.)
Other companies target equally broad goals. To ensure a wide-ranging sustainability initiative, BASF focuses on three main agendas: sourcing and producing responsibly; acting as a fair and reliable partner and connecting creative minds to find the best solutions for market needs. To reach such goals, companies must look at their own operations. “For BASF, it is imperative that we understand the impact of our own products in application, and we strive to increase the sustainability benefits brought to market through our chemistries,” says Wall-Warren.
That philosophy fueled BASF to develop a process that it calls Sustainable Solution Steering, which assesses over 60,000 BASF chemistries to determine which ones provide substantial sustainability contributions. To accomplish this, BASF follow three steps. The first, says Wall-Warren, is an “evaluation of industry and region-specific sustainability needs.” Then, the company checks its existing portfolio according to the sustainability needs. Last, BASF experts develop follow-up measures. Part of this involves accelerator products, which Wall-Warren describes as those that “distinctly contribute to sustainability, differentiated in the value chain for their innovative contribution in this sphere. We find that, on average, these products also yield higher growth rates and are more profitable than other products.” Conversely, BASF considers some products that do not meet rigorous standards for sustainability to be challenged. “We develop action plans for these products, including everything from further research to potential for reformulations. Sometimes we will ultimately replace a challenged product with an alternative,” Wall-Warren explains. This system helps BASF accelerate growth and marketability of sustainable products, with the ultimate goal of making more. “Our first milestone,” Wall-Warren notes, “is to increase our share of accelerators to 28% by 2020.”
Grabbing the breeze
Running a large corporation requires energy. In addition to using less energy, renewable sources promise super sustainability opportunities. To grab some of those savings, Johnson & Johnson made a 100-megawatt wind deal in September 2016, which, according to Dahlin, “represents 60% of Johnson & Johnson’s electricity consumption in the U.S. and 25% globally.”
Renewable energy has long been part of Johnson & Johnson’s plan. “We have invested approximately $340 million in 166 energy-efficiency and clean-energy projects since 2005, but realized we needed to invest in a large-scale renewable project to accelerate our efforts.” That drove the company to invest even more in wind energy, but it didn’t stop there.
In December 2016, Johnson & Johnson entered into a two-year, $1 million collaboration with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of more than 80 of the world’s megacities. These cities account for about 600 million people and a quarter of the global economy. “Our partnership with C40 will fund research to identify urban climate change mitigation and resiliency actions that result in the greatest air-quality improvements and ultimately the greatest improvements in human health,” Dahlin says.
When such leading companies place so much emphasis on sustainability, others surely must follow. Beyond profit, all businesses should consider ways to do more with less, opt for greener options whenever possible and build a healthier world. Those choices will help to sustain us all.