Responsibility for products and the environment Audited

The safety of our products – for users and patients as well as the environment – is at the core of our corporate responsibility. Our product safety guidelines are oriented to statutory regulations in force around the world. Through voluntary commitments to charters and codes of practice formulated by the national and international associations of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, we exceed these requirements. Examples include the global Responsible Care Charter in the chemical industry as well as rules governing pharmaceutical marketing practices specified by pharmaceutical industry associations. Our aim is to offer customers and patients high-quality original products.

When developing new products, we take the sustainability aspects of their entire life cycle into account. Extensive documentation of product properties and compliance with all legal requirements have a high priority for us.

We actively support our customers, for example, by providing them with comprehensive information material as well as advanced application-related training. We benefit from our broad positioning and our very extensive product range as well as a correspondingly high level of expertise.

Our quality vision points in the same direction – “Quality is in everything we do!” This vision addresses the responsibility of all employees individually – in all divisions, in all Group functions and at all levels of the hierarchy. In our view, quality has a lot to do with the trust that our customers have been placing in us for centuries.

REACH: Phase 2 is progressing according to schedule

The implementation of the EU regulation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) is currently in the second phase. It concerns all substances that we produce or import in volumes ranging between 100 and 1,000 metric tons per year – totaling approximately 75 different substances. These substances must be completely registered with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) by June 1, 2013. We have begun all the necessary processes for this and are fully on schedule with our activities. In parallel, we have already started to register the first substances for Phase 3, which will run from 2013 to 2018 and comprises all substances produced or imported in volumes exceeding one metric ton per year.

Merck Bioethics Advisory Panel

The Merck Bioethics Advisory Panel, comprising renowned, independent scientists and bioethicists from various countries, convened again in 2012. The panel specifically addresses bioethical topics that arise at Merck, such as questions regarding biopharmaceuticals or stem cells. In extensive discussions and working groups, the experts focused on aspects such as clinical trial design in developing countries as well as clinical research in countries with limited resources.

Access to Medicine Index: Improved ranking

Merck ranks eighth in the current Access to Medicine Index published by the Access to Medicine Foundation in November 2012. Compared to 2010, Merck thus improved its ranking by nine places. The Index compares 20 pharmaceutical companies every two years based on a ranking of various activities focused on improving access to medicines in countries with low and middle incomes.

We aim to create the conditions for sustainable access to high-quality, safe medicines and health solutions in developing countries. In order to further the goal of making our health solutions accessible and affordable to patients in developing countries, Merck has further expanded its Access to Health initiative. This constitutes a framework spanning all divisions and functions of the company, helping us to more effectively address issues relating to access to medicines in developing countries.

Fight against counterfeit products: MACON Network

Merck is resolute in its fight against counterfeit products. Counterfeit medicines endanger the life and health of patients. Furthermore, counterfeit medicines that are illegally marketed under the Merck brand name also damage the good reputation of Merck products. In order to fight this particularly unscrupulous form of organized crime, various departments within Merck and all subsidiaries abroad are cooperating in MACON (Merck Anti-Counterfeiting Operational Network). Contacts to local, regional and international authorities are actively maintained, training courses for employees and agency staff are conducted, and resources are made available for forensic product analyses. Merck is also actively involved in issues concerning the anticounterfeiting protection of its packaging and offers innovative solutions that meet market needs.

Environmental protection expenditure

Expenditure on environmental protection, health and safety totaled € 146 million in 2012. This figure includes investments made during the reporting period.

EHS management system and ISO group certificate

The Corporate EHS Policy defines our principles and strategies for the environment, health and safety. It is implemented through internal guidelines and instructions for compliant behavior, such as the Merck Group EHS, Security and Quality Manual.

Since our businesses are constantly changing, our environmental management system must also remain flexible and adaptable. For this reason, internal and external audits are conducted on a regular basis to determine whether the ISO 14001 requirements are still being met. In the course of the annual surveillance, the ISO 14001 group certificate was confirmed for our environmental management system for 2012 as well.

EDISON: 200 climate protection projects

Merck aims to continually improve its performance while using energy, water and materials economically and efficiently. The objective is to reduce the impact on the environment as well as to achieve cost savings. The current focus is on climate protection: By 2020, Merck aims to reduce its total direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 20% – measured against 2006 levels.

In order to achieve its climate goals, Merck launched a climate protection program called EDISON. This initiative pools all Merck Group activities worldwide that are aimed at climate protection and energy efficiency. In 2013, as in 2012, the Executive Board will additionally earmark around € 10 million for measures to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With the EDISON program, which consists of around 200 individual projects, Merck aims to save around 64 kt of CO₂ equivalents per year in the medium term. Around one-third of these globally planned projects have already been implemented or are ongoing, including also major projects on energy generation and heat recovery.

New power plants under construction

A new power plant is being constructed in Goa, India, for example, which will use climate-neutral biomass as fuel to supply the site with electricity and steam. Another EDISON project is the combined heat and power plant at the Gernsheim site in Germany that is currently under construction. This uses a high-efficiency gas turbine-driven co-generation system to produce electricity, while almost completely preventing the loss of unused heat.

Energy management plays an important role in sustainable energy efficiency and climate protection. In 2012, the two Merck production sites of Darmstadt and Gernsheim, which account for around 40% of the global energy consumption at Merck, were certified to the ISO 50001 standard for energy management systems.

Carbon Performance Leadership Index: Rating improved

The Carbon Disclosure Project is an independent non-profit organization that aims to improve transparency with respect to climate-harming greenhouse gas emissions. In the related Carbon Performance Leadership Index, which measures corporate performance in reducing emissions, we improved our rating from C to B, which clearly places us in a high performance band among all companies included in the category for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Around 350 companies are rated for their performance in reducing emissions. Only nine of them received a rating of A or A-, and 29 a rating of B.

Green³ concept

With its Green³ concept, the Liquid Crystals business unit is playing a key role in helping to promote eco-friendly, economical, safe technologies. We are developing innovative, environmentally friendly materials for energy-efficient LC and OLED displays and are helping our customers to design ecological production processes. The Green³ concept was expanded to also include cosmetics products from our Performance Materials division. The concept evaluates all possibilities for sustainably procuring and producing cosmetic ingredients and for optimizing the related production processes. In dialogue with our customers from the cosmetics industry, we also develop proposals for cosmetic formulations that meet the strict sustainability criteria and are in line with the current trend toward more natural cosmetics.

Life cycle analyses for selected products

Product life cycle analyses (also called eco-balance sheets or life cycle assessments) are used to determine the impact that products have on the environment. A product carbon footprint, for example, quantifies the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions that a product causes throughout its entire life cycle. A product water footprint is an indicator of the total water used throughout a product‘s life cycle.

In view of the growing importance of the topic, our Performance Materials division has determined the product carbon footprint for liquid crystal mixtures and pearl effect pigments as well as the product water footprint for liquid crystal mixtures. Here we are pursuing a cradle-to-gate approach, meaning from raw material sourcing and production through to delivery to customers. In addition, the Merck Millipore division is working intensively on this topic and has carried out a number of life cycle analyses and comparative product studies. Merck Millipore is also using these to further reduce the environmental impact of products as part of its Design for Sustainability program.