Environmental Sustainability

West continues to earn accolades and awards for our dedication to protecting our planet. We are proud to be recognized again as one of America’s Climate Leaders by USA Today and on America’s Most Responsible Companies list from Newsweek. In addition, West was honored regionally in Ireland with a Commitment to Sustainability Award and The Best Green Procurement Project of the Year for our Dublin location’s project “The Path to a Circular Economy.”

2018–2023 Goals: A Recap

Despite an unprecedented number of global capital expansion projects, we were able to reduce overall energy consumption in 2023 by 0.5%. Combined with this energy reduction, our continued focus on carbon reduction increased levels of renewable procured electricity to over 31%, accounting for 19.6% of our overall energy consumption. As a result, we achieved a GHG emissions reduction of 13.6% compared to our 5-year target of 10%.

Our drive toward renewable-sourced electricity allows us to move our decarbonization strategy forward and enables the future electrification of heat to reduce emissions related to natural gas consumption. Additionally, implementing energy audits and energy efficient design reviews across our global sites has identified several opportunities to continue reducing energy consumption and emissions in the future.

Our energy intensity metric, which was tracking well at 11.9% by the end of 2022, was affected by a reduced production volume in 2023. This shift has resulted in an energy intensity improvement of 4.2% against our 15% target set in 2018. As the facility expansion projects start to operate more efficiently after ramp-up, we expect to see positive trends once again for our energy intensity metric. We are also in the process of reviewing multiple metrics of tracking our energy intensity and efficiency as we move into our new 2030 targets.

We continued to focus on Landfill Diversion. In 2023, 78.8% of our waste was diverted from landfill, and we will strive to be 100% landfill free by 2030.

Partners in Sustainability

In addition, in 2023 we became an Official Sustainability Partner of the Philadelphia Eagles. This partnership represents a strategic approach by both organizations to promote environmental benefits, building on our established, long-standing commitment to sustainability and community development programs. The most visible and prominent aspect of the new partnership is the deployment of West’s Field Goal Forest. The Eagles and West will plant 20 trees for each successful field goal throughout the Eagles’ season, and will collaborate on a tree planting event.

Looking Ahead: 2030

We continue to be aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement in a commitment to do our part in curbing global temperature rise and have set new emissions reduction targets grounded in science through the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). In addition, we are a signatory to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which affirms our commitment to fiscal transparency, as well as being a leader in addressing current climate emergencies. We are also pursuing carbon offset mechanisms including Renewable Energy and Guaranteed of Origin Certificates, and Virtual Power Purchase Agreements, particularly in Europe where we’ve completed an extensive renewable energy analysis. West is also a proud member and active participant with the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) and is a signatory of the PSCI Principles, aligning with their vision for excellence in safety, environmental and social outcomes for the whole of the global pharmaceutical and health care supply chain.

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is an international non-profit organization that helps companies disclose their environmental impact. West’s significant progress over recent years has upgraded our CDP score to a “B”, putting us on the path to becoming a leader on environmental transparency and action. We have continuously added greater scientific rigor and a more quantitative focus to our environmentally based targets. In addition, we are working collaboratively with our customers and suppliers to solve ESG challenges, to better align our goals and ensure that we are responsive to their needs.

Both quantitative and qualitative targets have been set, which will enable us to achieve success in the Environment-related priorities of our ESG Strategy, including Climate Strategy, Waste in Operational Processes, R&D for the Environment and a Responsible Supply Chain. These 2030 targets include:

• Achieve 50% renewable electricity
• Achieve 15% energy intensity improvement
• Reduce absolute emissions by 40%
• Achieve 15% water intensity reduction
• Eliminate 100% of operational waste to landfill
• Partner with customers to reduce, reuse and recycle secondary packaging
• Collaborate with customers to explore environmental improvements throughout the product lifecycle
• Gather additional scope 3 emissions information from our supply chain, and develop a plan to reduce those emissions

Each of these goals was created through input from internal and external stakeholders and represent the minimum of what West plans to achieve. We are fully prepared to raise our targets if completed analyses indicate that is required. For example, the SBTi roadmap will provide us with a clearer target once completed no later than Q1 2026.

Having a mindful focus on our planet is woven into everything we do at West; from our global operations and supply chain to how we partner with customers and philanthropic organizations. We are continuously holding ourselves to the highest of standards when it comes to sustainability and being a leader of climate protection. Building a better future for health care, humanity and the planet will always be critical at West.