Dailycsr.com – 30 May 2020 – Environmental stewardship is important for Gilead as it aims to reduce its “greenhouse gas emissions at least 25% by 2025”, in comparison to the figures of 2016. In order to achieve the same, the company has come up with a “sustainability strategy” with three priority “key areas”. Gilead describes them as:
“growing our operations responsibly” “reducing our environmental footprint” “increasing our business resiliency” Through these above mentioned areas, employees across Gilead’s operation come together to “measure, implement and build programs” for reducing the “environmental impact” of Gilead and making the company “stronger” in turn. In the words of the CFO of Gilead, Andrew Dickinson:
“Growing our business while reducing our environmental footprint is not just the right thing to do – it is part of how we deliver responsible shareholder value. Using finite resources responsibly and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels makes good financial sense, and will make our company more resilient.”
Gilead’s commitment towards “conserving resources” can be measures as the company’s director for “Sustainability, Health and Safety”, Nicole Kho said:
“We announced our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% last April, and so far, thanks to the efforts of our employees and partners, we have achieved a 12% reduction. We view being nearly halfway to our 2025 goal as great progress, but we also understand this work requires ongoing diligence and we are committed to finding more sustainable ways to operate every part of our business.”
Gilead has made recent investments towards renewable energy as a result the company’s five “large sites” are currently operating with “100% renewable electricity”. Moreover, from a project of 2018 which dealt with installing solar panel’s at Gilead’s site in UK’s Cambridge, the company has now also completed installation of solar panels at “its site in Foster City, California” while there are plans of installing “at two Southern California sites” in future.
These initiatives are only “one example” of company’s attempts to reduce its carbon footprint, informs the Corporate Operations’ vice-president at Gilead, Joydeep Ganguly. Other examples are “a commuter program that helped avoid 90,000 vehicle trips to the company’s Foster City site last year and a transition from plastic water bottles to filtered tap water at the company’s European sites that eliminates 2.5 tons of plastic annually”.
While, Ganguly adds:
“These are just some of the many ways we are working to transition to a low-carbon future and mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contribute to improving the health of both people and our planet. We are always looking for creative approaches to maximize our impact through both internal efforts and external partnerships to ensure we are constantly creating a more sustainable business and making a significant contribution to the global effort to address climate change.”
References:
3blmedia.com