Climate
Novartis is committed to using resources efficiently and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which affect the climate. Our ambition is to make the company both energy and climate resilient. We have therefore established targets to first become carbon neutral in our own operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2025, and then to achieve carbon neutrality across our supply chain (Scope 1, 2 and 3) by 2030. As a stepping stone to achieve our ambition, we have an approved Science Based Target which commits us to a 35% reduction in absolute emissions across our value chain without using carbon offsets.
We need to think big to tackle climate change.
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A former US Navy Captain, who late during his career at the Pentagon in Washington once held a role equivalent to a two-star Navy admiral, James Goudreau is as passionate about the environment as any green activist. In this interview, James, Head of Climate at Novartis, shares insights on climate adaptation, carbon reduction and the company’s ambitious climate strategy. Read More |
Our first priority is to reduce our demand for energy, and we have a longstanding, comprehensive energy and climate program, which aims to improve energy efficiency for all industrial and commercial operations. This program helps ensure that all major sites are routinely assessed, and investments in energy efficiency are prioritized based on forecast energy savings.
Novartis has set an internal carbon price of USD 100 per ton (t) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). This is used to determine the financial impact of climate emissions from significant investments. Building a carbon price into investment decisions is important because it helps us ensure that projects are selected which have the lowest overall climate impact, and it is more effective to build in energy efficiency from the beginning than to redesign an existing system.
We are also making investments to decarbonise the energy we need by using renewable energy sources where available and feasible.
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For example, in 2017, Novartis struck its first major wind power deal, allowing the company to neutralize the carbon footprint for all the electricity bought for operations in the United States and Canada. As the company aims to decarbonize its European business, Novartis is also working to include its suppliers in its environment efforts. |
Furthermore, we have developed our own forestry projects as carbon sinks to compensate for parts of our operational climate emissions that cannot be avoided.
In addition, we have started to assess how climate change will affect facilities and are taking actions to improve our climate resilience and make our facilities less susceptible to extreme weather events.
To achieve our 2030 climate target, we need to engage with our suppliers. We have identified the climate hot spots in our value chain and have started to work with our suppliers to address these. In addition, we have begun to investigate the carbon footprint of our key products to identify the steps we can take to minimize it. For example, we have completed lifecycle assessment studies of two BREEZHALER® inhaled products.
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