Management of company environmental protection measures

Our responsibility to protect the environment is derived from our Values and our corporate strategy. We aim to continually improve our performance and reduce our impact on the environment by applying the precautionary principle. This especially includes utilizing resources such as energy, water and raw materials both efficiently and economically. Furthermore, we strive to lower our emissions and waste so that we can reduce our costs as well as our impact on the environment. As part of our contribution to climate protection, we have set a goal of reducing our direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, measured against the 2006 baseline.

Our Corporate "EHS Policy" provides the framework for principles, strategies, and organizational structures for environment, health and safety at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The policy is implemented through internal guidelines and instruction manuals such as our EHS, Security and Quality Manual, which tells our employees how to apply the EHS principles in their day-to-day work. Our guidelines are based on the Responsible Care Charter, which the chemical industry drafted in 2005.

Overall responsibility for environment, health, and safety is born by Executive Board Member Bernd Reckmann. The function Environment Health Safety Security Quality (EQ) is responsible for globally steering all environmental measures. At the individual sites, the local EHS managers are in charge of operational environmental protection measures.

Through internal and external audits, EQ monitors adherence to local environmental protection laws, regulatory requirements, standards and business requirements. During the 2011-2012 period, the Millipore sites acquired in summer 2010 were integrated into EQ's structural organization and processes. Reporting was harmonized as well. Environmentally relevant data are regularly collected at the individual sites via the LION electronic data management system; the data are then reported to EQ, mostly on a yearly basis, but sometimes several times a year, or even monthly.

We manage our Group-wide environmental protection activities through an environmental management system that complies with ISO 14001. All production sites are required to implement this environmental management system, which is annually certified by an accredited organization. Since 2009, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany has held an ISO 14001:2004 Group certificate for its environmental management system, which covered 49 sites at the end of 2012. New production sites must subsequently set up and implement a certifiable environmental management system that conforms to Group standards. This has been accomplished for the majority of the Millipore sites acquired in 2010. At the remaining four Millipore production sites, enough progress has been made in setting up the corresponding management systems that they are scheduled to be externally certified and added to the Group certificate in 2013.

In both 2011 and 2012, we successfully passed the audit that is conducted every year in November as part of the certification process. During the audits, the certifier identified only a few areas with potential for improvement at select sites, after which appropriate action plans were defined to address them.

All employees with environmental protection responsibilities are trained on a continuous basis and obtain additional qualifications. Besides local programs, this training also includes the annual international EHS Congress in Darmstadt as well as the regional EHS Forum. Both events inform attendees about new EHS issues as well as updates to guidelines and laws; they furthermore encourage best practice sharing at an expert level.

Spending on environment, health and safety totaled € 141 million in 2011 and € 146 million in 2012. These totals also include investments made during the respective years.