Sustainability is engrained in our corporate strategy and embedded in daily business — with the necessary management frameworks, systems and processes. In our internal processes, we position sustainability and digitalization as enablers. Both are built into our operating principles and business processes at all levels. All medmix sites embed the global sustainability policy into their local practices and implement it in daily operations.
We recognize that our responsibilities are not limited to delivering strong financial results, and therefore proactively direct our resources towards innovations that contribute to sustainable solutions for our societies. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics have been introduced in our compensation framework and are included in the performance objectives of all our long-term incentive eligible leaders.
The medmix approach to sustainability
People
We enable an inclusive workplace, promote impactful development opportunities, and facilitate engagement.
We believe in going the extra mile to support our communities and our employees and engage in projects with community impact at each of our sites.
We support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights and prohibit, within our own operations and in our supply chain: discrimination and/or harassment based on race, color, age, gender, sexual orientation or identity, ethnicity, religion, disability, union membership or political affiliation; child labor, forced labor and human trafficking; corruption, bribery, conflicts of interest, money laundering, anti-competitive practices, and extortion.
Profit
We promote and provide sustainable technologies with long-term value.
We work to reduce the environmental footprint of our products by incorporating eco-design principles from the development phase.
We increase the use of post-consumer resin (PCR) and bio-based plastics.
Planet
We reduce our global carbon footprint, enable low-carbon energy use at our sites and reduce air freight.
We protect the environment, prevent pollution of air, soil and water, and reduce our environmental impact by aiming to reduce waste sent to landfill and improving our water-usage management.
We continuously improve our energy-related performance by purchasing energy-efficient products where possible.
We fulfill applicable legal obligations and other requirements in the areas of health & safety, environment, energy use, energy consumption and energy efficiency.
We set ambitious, measurable, and meaningful environmental, health, safety and energy (EHS&E) targets and provide the necessary knowledge and resources to achieve them.
We continually improve our EHS&E management system and aim to have all medmix manufacturing sites ISO 45001/14001/50001-certified.
“Sustainability is at the core of our business and people strategy at medmix. We are working across our focus areas to implement, improve and impact the processes, products and people connected with our company. From focusing on employee and community engagement to managing our carbon footprint and developing sustainable solutions for our products — we have taken on some significant challenges and are proud of our contribution in this space.”
Itee Satpathy
Chief Human Resources Officer
Eco-design as a principle and a method
Sustainable innovation is a priority for us as we aim to create business and social value. Guided by our mission, we are dedicated to continuing to propose innovative products developed with a lower carbon footprint.
For this reason, we have formally implemented a process to incorporate eco-design principles. Eco-design is both a principle and a method. It proposes to assess and optimize the environmental impact of a product or a service over its complete life cycle. The ecological impact assessment is done during the product development phase, by including factors like the type of raw material, the necessary energy to produce the product, the size and usage of material, as well as secondary packaging phase. Our innovation process is organized in a cross-functional team, grouping different expertise and capabilities from sales and marketing as well as design, material and sustainability functions. Our design engineers have been trained in life-cycle analysis by an expert third-party and we use international life-cycle analysis software to demonstrate the benefits of our approach.
Post-consumer resins and bio-based material
Post-consumer or post-use material is material generated by the end-users of products that has fulfilled its intended purpose or can no longer be used. Post-consumer resin (PCR) includes consumer packaging items such as plastic film, bottles, and industrial packaging items. These items can be reprocessed into recycled plastic that is used to make new products. Bio-based material is material with organic roots; in our case, derived from vegetables. We plan to systematically reduce our PCR environmental impact by 2025, for example through the use of bio-based materials and by an overall minimalization of packaging.
Beauty market segment as a forerunner for matrix updates in all segments
The usage of materials in our products has already been reduced following the LEAN approach, but we want to go further by using PCRs to the maximum possible extent. The Beauty market segment has a leading role in this respect within the company. Its products can now contain between 20% and 92% of PCR and bio-based material. In all other market segments, we are currently implementing the processes and learnings from the Beauty market segment in cross-functional teams to make use of the knowledge and expertise across the businesses. Our overall goal is to provide our customers with products that have the lowest possible environmental impact, and to propose lower carbon footprint alternatives for all our existing products where technically or legally possible.
Low-carbon electricity and efficient machines
As a global player with production facilities around the world, electricity usage is a key lever for sustainability. As recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are prioritizing switching our supply of electricity to low-carbon electricity. This means that our sites will be supplied by wind, solar, hydro power, biomass or nuclear energy sources. This project started in 2019 and is already at an advanced stage.
Our Swiss and Brazilian operations already operated using low-carbon electricity grids. Over the past year, we have switched five more of our sites in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, China and the USA from traditional grid power sources to low-carbon contracts. In total, 8 of our 13 sites had switched to a low-carbon energy supply by the end of 2021.
Number of sites supplied by low-carbon electricity
Renewing our fleet with all-electric machines
Effective and efficient manufacturing is also about monitoring, replacing and adding new equipment. In 2021, we developed a new process to ensure that energy efficiency of capital equipment is given equal consideration as part of the decision process. In 2021, medmix added 24 new injection molding machines to its fleet of ca. 300. In line with our capital equipment policy, all new injection molding machines are of the all-electric type. Typically, an all-electric machine uses 50% less energy than an equivalent size all-hydraulic machine. Additionally, in-house testing confirmed that all-electric injection molding machines consume 20% less electricity than even modern hybrid (half hydraulic, half electric) molding machines. Combining these energy savings with a typical cycle time reduction of ca. 15% means that for the 24 new machines added to the medmix fleet in 2021, we will consume almost 500 MWh less electricity to produce the same number of articles than if we had continued to invest in hybrid machines. Two-thirds of the new machines are needed to increase our molding capacity, while one-third were used to replace older all-hydraulic machines. In 2022, it is expected that with further capacity expansion plans and end-of-life replacements, we will see a similar amount of injection machine orders as in 2021.
