a man and a boy walking on a rocky path in a valley

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Protecting the planet

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“We've advanced our transition planning, have set clear targets, and continued to expand our renewable energy infrastructure across our manufacturing sites. We've validated our science-based targets and are committed to reaching net zero by 2045. While we can more easily manage things we control directly, we cannot meet our targets without working with partners in our global supply chain. We continued to focus on communities, and launched an exciting new partnership with Partners In Health, alongside a range of initiatives to encourage colleagues to make a difference.”

John Haller, EVP, Chief Global Quality & Operations Officer

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Our approach

Throughout 2023, we made progress on our environmental strategy in many ways:

Carbon and energy: validated our science-based targets to ensure carbon emissions reductions in our own operations are in line with the Paris Accord
Sustainable product design and supply chain: ensuring innovation in product design to reduce the cradle-to-grave carbon footprint, including the launch of a Scope 3/product sustainability working group
Waste: increasing attention to the environmental impacts of waste at the end of the production and use lifecycle
Water: addressing the impact of production and manufacturing on freshwater ecotoxicity and the consumption of water in water-stressed environments
Governance: facilitating and ensuring coherent action across the company to reduce Convatec's impact on the environment

Our targets & commitments

In 2023, we reduced our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 35% against our 2022 emissions through improved energy efficiency and sourcing of renewable electricity. However, we know we can do more and have set targets to:

Achieve net zero carbon by 2045
Reduce our combined Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 70% against a 2021 baseline by 2030
Reduce our Scope 3 GHG emissions by 52% per sold product against a 2021 baseline by 2030

For more detail on our environmental targets, see page 58 to 61 of our 2023 Annual Report.

Energy

As part of our climate change and environmental strategy, we continue to identify projects to improve our energy efficiency and where possible allow us to generate our own renewable energy. As such, an appropriately extended return on investment period for investments has been agreed to ensure strategic environmental projects are approved and progressed.

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Energy efficiency case studies

Reynosa, Mexico

We have implemented an improved control strategy of the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems at our manufacturing plant in Reynosa, Mexico. The new strategy optimises the start-up and run time of the air-cooled chillers which provide chilled water to air handling units, maintaining the clean room cooling supply in a more efficient manner. The clean room air change rates have also been optimised, reducing the power used for the air handling units, while maintaining the validated state. This project is delivering 1,371 MWh per annum (9% of total site energy), which equates to a 546 tCO2e carbon reduction.

Haina, Dominican Republic

The fixed speed air compressors have been replaced at our Haina manufacturing plant in the Dominican Republic. The new units are water cooled with variable speed-controlled motors realising both energy reduction and maintenance cost savings, supplying the production equipment with efficiently generated compressed air. In addition, the system is equipped with a central monitoring tool to analyse and optimise performance. This project will save approximately 529 MWh per annum (3% of total site energy), which equates to a 312 tCO²e carbon reduction.

Smart metering

A global energy management initiative was undertaken at our manufacturing sites to install smart metering on high energy using equipment. The meters are connected to a cloud-based platform for data recording, trending and analysis. The enhanced visibility of consumption patterns enables identification of energy efficiency opportunities, continuous improvement and the quantification of energy savings following project implementation. This project will save approximately 318 MWh (1% of total global energy) per annum.

Emissions

As part of our climate change and environmental strategy, Convatec has confirmed a 2021 baseline for our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions, validated our Science Based Targets (SBTs) and committed to achieve carbon net zero (Scope 1, 2 and 3) by 2045. In 2023, a reduction in Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions of 35% was achieved. However, Scope 3 (value chain) emissions are now more than 96% of Convatec’s total carbon footprint. As such, initiatives to reduce Scope 3 emissions are essential if we are to achieve our net zero target by 2045. See pages 58 and 61 in our 2023 ARA for more information on our GHG emissions and energy efficiency.

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Product life-cycle

Our products are the most visible element of our environmental performance and encapsulate accumulated environmental impacts along the value chain, from extraction of raw materials, through manufacture and logistics, use by customers, and final disposal. By better understanding where the most significant impacts are created, we are better able to focus on the priorities for attention. We are making significant progress on several packaging reduction initiatives, including a flow wrap project to eliminate PVC and reduce packaging weight by almost 80% on all baseplates in our Ostomy Care portfolio. We continue to roll-out flow wrap in 2024 and have strengthened our packaging team further and elevated our focus on packaging in our strategic planning process and ESG governance. In 2024, we will continue to enhance the actionable carbon intensity data set recorded in our digital product sustainability tool, for all Convatec manufactured raw materials. This will then be incorporated into our new product design process for carbon foot-printing, as we continue to expand the platform.

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TCFD

We are committed to implementing and fully complying with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), providing investors and other stakeholders with useful information on climate-related risks and opportunities that are relevant to our business, including their financial implications. See page 66 of our 2023 ARA for our TCFD disclosure.

a couple of women sitting on a couch looking at a tablet

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Our management approach

Dedicated Environment, Health and Safety Managers work across our manufacturing sites, and are developing environmental management systems in line with corporate requirement and referencing ISO14001. We have an environmental policy statement which sets out our position, and this reflects a more detailed internal environmental policy document which provides direction to major facilities on how to structure their environmental management programmes. A cross-functional team of EHS, Operations, and Risk manage our environmental programmes. We have a specific TCFD working group as part of our CELT-level ESG Steering Committee.

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