Indicators: Environment

Environmental management

These figures include both investments in as well as internal and external spending on waste and wastewater management, water, occupational safety, fire protection, noise reduction, air pollution prevention, decontamination, preservation of nature and the landscape, climate protection, and energy efficiency.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Our response to the Carbon Disclosure Project contains a detailed description of our calculation methods.

Greenhouse gas emissions in 2011 decreased 6% relative to 2010. Our EDISON program is thus already making progress. These figures do not include emissions from using biomass to create energy. In 2012, emissions totaled 5.1 metric kilotons (2011: 4.9 metric kilotons).

Other air emissions

The VOC, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and dust emissions reported here are production-related. These figures do not include emissions from vehicles. Emissions are determined partially based on measurements and partially based on calculations or estimates. Only some sites are required to measure individual parameters.

Transport

In shipping finished goods from production sites to local warehouses of the legal entities, we are working to reduce the use of air shipping in favor of sea shipping. In doing so, we cut costs and reduce the CO₂ emissions incurred by transporting goods. In 2012, this switch led to savings of 2,000 metric tons of CO₂.

Resource consumption

At our sites in Billerica, Massachusetts (USA), Bedford, Massachusetts (USA), Molsheim (France), Tel Aviv (Israel), and Rome (Italy), we use photovoltaics to produce power.

The water utilized also includes cooling water that is only ever heated and that never comes into contact with chemical substances. A large portion of the cooling water (around 7 million m³) is used for cooling and heating purposes at the prescription medicines division site in Geneva. Here, water from Lake Geneva is utilized to air-condition this administrative and laboratory site. Other buildings in the neighboring district are connected to the system. The lake water covers a large portion of the site’s energy requirements.

These figures do not include the groundwater that we utilize in relation to safety measures at the Gernsheim site in Germany. Here, the water is fed back directly into natural circulation.

Wastewater

The wastewater volume includes indirect discharge into both public and Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany-owned wastewater treatment plants, as well as direct discharge (such as rainwater and cooling water). The wastewater volume does not include the water taken from Lake Geneva (around 7 million m³) that is exclusively used for cooling and heating and then fed directly back again.

Wastewater from the neighboring municipality of Biebesheim is also treated at the wastewater treatment plant at the Gernsheim site in Germany. The communal wastewater from Biebesheim is included in the wastewater volume as well as in the emissions stated in the table.

Emissions are determined partially based on measurements and partially based on calculations or estimates. Only some sites are required to measure individual parameters.

Waste

In 2011 and 2012, waste from construction and renovation projects constituted a large portion of the waste volume (2011: 36%, 2012: 34%). Due to a major demolition and renovation project at the Darmstadt site in Germany, large quantities of hazardous waste had to be disposed of in 2012. This impacted the recycling rate, which dropped to 47%. At the same time, the volume of recyclable non-hazardous waste declined. A large portion of this waste was generated in 2011 during a major construction project in Darmstadt that was completed in 2012.