Note from our Director, Sustainability David Newman

Sustainable, Responsible, Innovative.

Are these words that get thrown around, without a clear meaning? We’re now over a year into this initiative, and it has been incredible to see the transformation at Millipore. The meaning is coming into focus for us, as a company, and it’s not just about turning off the lights when you leave the room. To Millipore, it means continuing to grow our company, be profitable and competitive, but enable the needs of future generations. Our focus has been on our environmental impacts—particularly waste, water and climate change. Not only do our practices make sense for the environment, they make great business sense as well.

To me, the real challenge around sustainable growth is turning challenge into action. This is the area where Millipore excels, because our corporate culture revolves around the values of innovation, execution, integrity, passion, and teamwork. These values translate perfectly into developing unique and novel solutions for our customers, but also reducing our environmental impacts.

As we watch commodity prices for fossil fuels unpredictably rise and fall, we’ve taken action through our efficiency programs to control our own destiny. As you read through the pages at this site, you’ll see how we’re lowering our wastewater production, making dramatic shifts in energy use, changing our fleet vehicles, improving our solid waste recycling rates, and thinking about the impacts of our products--among other things. Hundreds of employees are behind this initiative, not just a few. Innovative ideas are captured through our ideas database, and expert functions can then evaluate and implement those that make sense.

Since we’re a life sciences company, we rely heavily on data. To this end, we’ve tried to be painfully honest in the data that we release, and show the proof of the projects that are now complete. Formal audits highlight areas of opportunity to reduce waste. Pre and post-monitoring of electricity use demonstrate effectiveness of efficiency measures, and allow us to prioritize work elsewhere. Totalizer and electronic controls allow us to keep track of water use and where we need to get better. We realize that many of our employees, customers and investors are scientists and engineers, who demand credible, honest and accurate information to back up claims. That’s what we’ll try to give you here.

Despite all of this progress, we have a long way to go. In addition to continuing to address our own environmental impacts at our manufacturing facilities, another focus area for us is around product stewardship—how are our products used, and what happens to them at the end of their life. Certainly this will be more challenging, and will require close partnering with our suppliers and customers to develop more innovative solutions.

We look forward to learning. Together.

David Newman
Director, Sustainability

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