Environment

As a global player in the health care sector, our responsibility extends beyond our business operations. We are committed to improving the environmental performance of our products throughout their entire lifecycle and to reducing the impact of our operations on the environment.

In North America, environmental management is organized at a regional level. We constantly monitor national and international regulations relating to environmental, chemical, and occupational health and safety issues so that our internal policies, guidelines and standard operating procedures are up-to-date. In compliance with applicable laws and internal guidelines, our manufacturing sites, distribution centers and laboratories are subject to regular audits. Furthermore, we regularly analyze energy, water and waste, and review them to reduce consumption and improve efficiency in all our facilities.

In Europe, Middle East and Africa, environmental management is part of Fresenius Medical Care’s integrated management system. The aim here is to systematically control and reduce risks associated with environmental protection, comply with applicable legislation, and meet the expectations of our customers and patients. Since our environmental certification strategy is focused on but not limited to production sites with high consumption levels, eight of our largest production sites in Europe, Middle East and Africa are certified according to ISO 14001. Two of these production sites are also certified according to ISO 50001. Compliance with ISO standards is regularly reviewed by internal and external experts.

In Latin America, we have implemented an environmental management program to control and improve our environmental performance in terms of energy, water and waste in our dialysis clinics. In addition, we review the environmental data on a regular basis to control developments as well as target achievements and define measurements and activities for improvement.

In Asia-Pacific, environmental management is managed locally by each manufacturing site. This includes the management of water, waste water, energy, waste, greenhouse gas emissions/air pollution, and noise, based on local regulations which may differ from site to site. The general target is to achieve environmental compliance and make improvements to reduce any negative environmental impact and risks for our patients and employees as well as for our production facilities.

Fresenius Medical Care monitors and reports data on the following environmental topics including dialysis services and manufacturing at global level:

• water consumption,
• energy consumption and
• greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2).

In 2019, Fresenius Medical Care used 43 M m³ of water and 2.4 M MWh of energy, resulting in 227 K tons of scope 1 and 547 K tons of scope 2 CO₂ equivalents worldwide. The figures include data on energy and water consumption provided by our manufacturing sites and dialysis centers. Greenhouse gases are calculated based on energy data.

Our commitment to using natural resources efficiently is also part of the Environmental Policy. In this policy, we pledge to minimize the impact of our activities on the environment, comply with applicable laws and regulations and provide safe and healthy working conditions for all employees. Using natural resources efficiently, preventing environmental pollution, recycling waste efficiently, and enhancing our environmental performance are core elements of our efforts to continually improve our environmental management system.

One of our core objectives is to further reduce the impact of dialysis treatment on the environment while saving on resources and ensuring cost efficiency. We manage this by using ecologically sustainable dialysis products as well as constructing environmentally friendly dialysis centers.

Another central element for managing the efficient use of resources in our dialysis clinics is our clinic software e-con5, a comprehensive environmental management system which we have established in dialysis clinics in Europe and Latin America. It enables them to gather and compare environmental performance data and implement potential improvements quickly. The results show that this system has enabled us to systematically reduce water and energy consumption as well as the amount of blood-contaminated waste in our dialysis centers in the past few years.

To continuously improve our environmental performance, we encourage local sustainability projects as part of our Green and lean reporting.

Green and lean initiatives enable best practices to be shared between plants with a view to using natural resources efficiently and implementing environmentally sustainable operations.

The first environmentally friendly products were introduced in 1996 with the stay.safe® CAPD system made of 100% Biofine®. Many other PVC-free products followed since then.

Biofine® is a revolutionary material, a seven-layer polymer constructed from hydrogen and carbon atoms. That means it...