Drug giant’s $1bn plan for green future
PHARMACEUTICAL giant AstraZeneca has revealed details of its $1bn Ambition Zero Carbon strategy.
The firm, which has a manufacturing site in Hurdsfield employing around 1,800 people, wants to eliminate emissions by 2025 and be carbon negative by 2030.
Its aim was unveiled at a World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland this week and will see the company join the Sustainable Markets Council, which drives climate policy change.
Measures include using renewable energy for both power and heat, as well as switching to a 100 per cent electric vehicle fleet five years sooner than planned.
AstraZeneca also plans to develop respiratory inhalers to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that have almost no components that add to global warming. Another project is the AZ Forest, a reforestation initiative that will be rolled out in the next five years to plant 50 million trees in countries including Australia and Indonesia.
Pascal Soriot, chief executive officer, said: “Climate change is an urgent threat to public health, the environment and the sustainability of the global economy.
“Since 2015, we have reduced our carbon emissions from operations by almost a third and our water consumption by almost one fifth.
“But now is the time to act even faster and redouble our efforts.
“The commitments AstraZeneca has made today as part of our Ambition Zero Carbon strategy will enable us to speed up the reduction of our Company’s impact on climate and inspire collaboration at a global level to effect policy change.”
The company says its programme represents investment of $1bn and will bring forward its decarbonisation plans by more than a decade.
Alexander Farsan, from the World Wildlife Fund, said: “As the impact of climate change is felt by more and more communities across the globe, AstraZeneca’s collaborative approach to scale the impact of a science-based approach across their value chain is exactly what is needed.”