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Energy & Waste Management

A major part of our ISO 14001 certification is a constant monitoring and improvement of our waste and energy balance.

Energy Saving Initiatives

  • As a result of our ISO 14001 activities we have significantly reduced usage of energy in different areas, e.g. automatic light management during night in our logistics and office locations 
  • Poster campaign to motivate our associates to be particularly careful with the use of electricity, water and waste recycling 
  • Our company car drivers are trained to reduce fuel consumption (not applicable in all VWR International countries yet) 
  • Replacing all of our CRT Monitors by LCD based screens

Active Waste Management and Recycling

  • Activities to reduce our mercurial waste
  • Activities to reduce waste on batteries and manage the recycling of batteries
  • Activities to recycle paper, glass and other material
  • Recycling of printer toner

Reduction on Printing and Printers

  • Project ongoing to centralise printers within offices to avoid printer toner and lower energy consumption

Centralisation of Computer Centres

  • Centralised computer centers are helping to reduce the need for Server Hardware and required energy (cooling etc.)

We No Longer Have An Internal Transport Fleet

  • Using transport capacities of external partners avoids driving to customers with almost empty trucks

VWR Travel Policy

  • Using online conferences via WebEx in combination with telephone conferences helps to reduce the amount of travel needed

Carbon Footprint Analysis

VWR completed its first global footprint analysis in 2012. By analyzing electricity, natural gas and water data from 32 of our global facilities, we have been able to establish baseline usage on a global scale and have taken the steps neccessary to expand our data collection to include other energy sources as well as waste and recycling to provide more insight into our operational impact. By assessing our energy usage we were able to calculate our global GHG emissions from these 32 facilities giving VWR a broader view into our environmental impact. In 2012 and 2013, VWR publicly reported its carbon emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).