Pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline has embraced the concept that being environmentally responsible also is good business.
The company's latest corporate responsibility report, which outlines a new environmental strategy that aims to cut its carbon footprint by 2020, also notes that the initiative is expected to generate annual savings of $160 million.
The savings are important because GSK is knee-deep in a major restructuring and cost-cutting. Between 2007 and 2010 the company cut about 22,000 jobs worldwide, although it added jobs in growth areas. It now employs about 96,500 people; that includes about 5,000 workers in the Triangle, including its North American headquarters in RTP and a manufacturing plant in Zebulon.
GSK's 262-page report, issued Monday, discloses that the company's charitable contributions worldwide increased more than one-third to $345 million last year. That included $155 million worth of drugs the company gave to 452,500 low-income U.S. patients.
"We're committed to increasing access to our medicine for patients, irrespective of where they live and their ability to pay," CEO Andrew Witty wrote in the report.
GSK's drug donations to low-income U.S. patients has risen steadily in recent years, including a 25 percent jump last year as the struggling economy increased demand for the free drugs.
This marks the third year that the company has put the value of its donated drugs at cost, rather than the wholesale price. The company sees its new accounting as more transparent because it is "a more accurate reflection of the true cost to GSK," spokeswoman Sarah Alspach said.
The wholesale value of the drugs the company donated last year would be $593 million, Alspach said.
The company's 2020 goal of reducing its carbon footprint by one-fourth is an interim goal on the way to its longer-term goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. "This very ambitious target means that there will be no net greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing, distributing, using and disposing of our products," the report states.
The report also updates how well the company has fared with its past environmental goals.
GSK has reduced the amount of water it uses by 16 percent since 2006, exceeding its goal of lowering water use by 2 percent a year. The company also exceeded its five-year targets in several other categories, including waste and wastewater quality.
The company's use of wastewater that has been heavily treated, known as reclaimed water, at its Zebulon plant is producing estimated annual savings of $140,000 on its sewer bill and $85,000 on its water bill, Alspach said.
GSK has fallen short on its five-year targets for overall energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 2006 they have fallen 9.1 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively, well short of the 20 percent target.
Still, the company reported, "the investments made in the early part of the five-year period are now starting to deliver benefits."
Those investments include putting solar panels on the roofs of three of its buildings in RTP as well as the largest array of solar panels in North America - nearly 11,000 of them - at a distribution center in York, Pa.
Also, the company's use of "heat recovery chillers" in RTP saves the company up to $200,000 a year by lowering the heating and cooling systems' needs for hot water and chilled water, Alspach said.
