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

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Protecting the planet

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“Climate change is impacting our planet and our health. We recognise the environmental impacts of our own operations, our upstream supply chain, as well as the downstream distribution, use and final disposal of our products. We also understand the ripple effects climate change has on our stakeholders in the long term, through physical and social risks such as water shortages, desertification, pandemics or forced migration. We recognise the multiple benefits of taking proactive action to address our impacts, increasing resilience in our manufacturing operations and the ability to meet customer expectations with more sustainable products.”

John Haller, EVP, Chief Global Quality & Operations Officer

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Our approach

Throughout 2022, we made progress on our environmental strategy in many ways:

Carbon and energy: updating our 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 completing a baseline study on Scope 3 emissions
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 the Group’s impact on the environment

Our targets & commitments

In 2022, we reduced our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 32% against our 2021 baseline 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
Achieve validation of aligned SBTs (Scope 1 and 2 and 3 emissions) in 2023, using a 2021 performance baseline
Reduce our combined Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 70% against a 2021 baseline by 2030

For more detail on our environmental targets, see page 66 to 71 of our 2022 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, our commitment to setting Science Based Targets (SBTs), as well as a commitment to achieve carbon net zero (Scope 1, 2 and 3) by 2045. In 2022, a reduction in Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions of 32% was achieved at our manufacturing locations, achieved. However, Scope 3 (value chain) emissions are estimated to be more than 93% of Convatec’s total carbon footprint. As such, monitoring, managing, and reporting of Scope 3 emissions are essential if we are to achieve our net zero target by 2045. In 2022, we completed a Scope 3 materiality study to assess which of the 15 categories of value chain carbon emissions are relevant and quantifiable based on the data available. This informed our Scope 3 SBT which we target to have validated by the end of 2023. See pages 68 and 69 in our 2022 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 the reduction of label sizes in Ostomy Care and the launch of our ‘Stop wasting space’ campaign to reduce the number of pallets used when shipping product by sea. Our new product development process and Green Design Guidelines help to facilitate this progress further as described here. We are in the process of establishing an environmental strategy delivery team collaborating across operations and a review of the carbon impact of our packaging will be considered as part of this initiative.

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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 75 of our 2022 ARA for our TCFD disclosure.

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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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