EHS management approach
"In all our activities we will protect our employees, facilities and the environment from harmful influences, conserve natural resources and promote environmental awareness". This is stated in our guiding principles or "Leitbild".
As a pharmaceutical research and manufacturing company, Boehringer Ingelheim is making every effort to improve each single process in order to minimise the use of raw materials as well as to reduce waste and to generate energy in the most sustainable way. Various measures for improving occupational safety and health have been taken in order to foster a healthy work environment.
The Corporate Department Environment Health and Safety (EHS) and Sustainability is in charge of controlling the companywide EHS management system.
Our comprehensive EHS framework describes our EHS management system at a corporate level, consisting on the following elements
- EHS policy
- EHS strategy
- EHS key initiatives
- EHS annual targets
The company-wide EHS policy forms the basis of and serves as our commitment to a culture of continuous improvement, as well as complying with high standards relating to environmental protection, safety and health. Our policy has been translated into different languages and will be provided to our units worldwide.
The scope of our EHS policy encompasses all employees of the Boehringer Ingelheim group. Management is responsible for establishing and implementing this policy based on the risks and requirements within their particular areas.
The EHS strategy identifies our most important fields of EHS activities in the medium term and comprises corresponding action plans, reporting responsibilities and due dates for reaching our company objectives.
Our international strategic EHS initiatives serve as an important driver to foster our EHS sustainable framework. These are specific programmes focused on priority business practices and strong internal or external communication activities.
The initiatives aim to achieve higher standards in EHS performance by applying continuous improvement, promoting environmental protection and occupational safety.
The Boehringer Ingelheim "Operations Corporate Procedures" provide guidance and governance on how to perform operations and activities in accordance with the overall Boehringer Ingelheim EHS policy. For us the implementation of global procedures and guidelines is a prerequisite to ensure standards worldwide in the EHS field.
The implementation of and compliance with our EHS policy and corporate procedures at our sites is controlled by systematically conducted corporate EHS audits.
In order to successfully carry out a continuous improvement programme, we have defined annual targets based on mid-term and long-term targets at the corporate level:
- Our target for worker safety is the reduction of the accident frequency rate (number of accidents per million working hours) from more than 3 in 2009 to less than 1.6 in 2016.
- We seek to minimise our carbon footprint and have set a new goal to reduce our CO2 equivalent emissions (relative to sales volume, excluding emissions from patient use of inhaler products) by 20% by 2020 (base year 2010).
We have also implemented a company-wide reporting system as the basis for our EHS Sustainability Performance Management (SuPM) in order to enable the measurement of progress toward our EHS targets and to support risk and opportunity analysis. Relevant EHS data is regularly reported from our sites to corporate EHS.
In order to guarantee the continuous improvement of EHS performance, our production sites have implemented local management systems worldwide. These systems are based on international standards, such as ISO 14000 (environmental protection) and OHSAS 18001 (safety). Regular internal EHS audits ensure the effectiveness of these management systems. Site management decides at its own discretion on the need for external certification.
Both corporate and site management systems interact, enhancing the commitment of all members of the group of companies. Strategic decisions are prepared at corporate level in collaboration with sites. Solutions to matters of general interest are developed by international expert teams.
All Boehringer Ingelheim employees (permanent or temporary) receive appropriate EHS training tailored to the different needs of the functions. These trainings assure that employees are aware of the importance of EHS and related corporate procedures. The corporate EHS department supports sites in provision of trainings.
Our business partners, including suppliers, forwarders and third party manufacturers, are expected to share our social and environmental values, to acknowledge our safety culture and to invest in promoting these responsibilities.
Boehringer Ingelheim encourages and fosters a pro-active and open dialogue with its stakeholders. In Germany, for instance, regularly conducted meetings within the neighborhood provide the opportunity to exchange information and to discuss various topics, such as the German Hazardous Incident Ordinance or remediation of contaminated landfill deposits, with interested local residents.