Management Systems

Millipore’s CEO, Martin Madaus, PhD, is the Corporate Executive Committee sponsor for the company’s sustainability program. David Newman, Director, Sustainability, is the leader for this effort, and coordinates a steering team of representatives from the United State and Europe. Sustainability, however, is a team effort. We have over 30 full-time EHS staff worldwide, and six full-time global properties staff. We encourage all employees to get involved. As with any aspect of business, leading environmental performance requires rigorous and effective management. For this reason, Millipore requires all manufacturing and R&D sites worldwide to implement environmental, health and safety (EHS) management systems. These systems provide the foundation for continually improving EHS performance, reducing adverse incidents, improving productivity and reducing costs.

On this page you can learn more about our efforts with audits, external standards, process excellence, employee health and safety, and emergency preparedness.

Audits

Jeff Cady, EHS Program Manager, conducts an ISO 14001 system audit at our facility in Jaffrey, NH.

As part of on-going validation of Millipore’s EHS management systems and compliance, audits are conducted throughout all of our operations. We employ internal and external subject matter experts to perform these audits, and share the resulting knowledge and best practices within the EHS organization. This helps us advance our EHS management system without needing to reinvent programs from site to site, and enables Millipore to effectively respond to new and emerging requirements. Each Millipore site conducts a quarterly self-audit, which leads to a “Scorecard”, or composite performance score. Our Global Operations Team, led by the Executive Vice President of Global Supply Chain, reviews these scores. This analysis covers key programs in areas such as air emissions, water and wastewater, hazardous waste management, energy and greenhouse gas emissions, employee participation, hazard assessments, industrial hygiene, employee training and communication, business continuity, emergency preparedness and others.

Sites also conduct targeted compliance audits in areas such as hazardous waste, process safety and biosafety.

External Standards

Our three largest manufacturing sites – Cork, Ireland; Jaffrey, United States; and Molsheim, France – have achieved ISO 14001 certification, the leading international standard for environmental management systems. To maintain this status, all three sites undergo reviews every three years by third-party certification bodies. This focus has led to sizable cost savings and environmental benefits. Individual sites determine whether to pursue ISO 14001 certification, since we believe that commitment should be made by the teams directly involved.

Some of our sites also have site-specific EHS policies that build upon our companywide policy to address issues specific to their operations.

Process Excellence

We recently introduced Process Excellence across the company. This combines Lean manufacturing, which focuses on reduction of waste and non-value added activities, with Six Sigma, a data-driven approach to process improvement. Although not exclusively targeting environmental performance, these efforts have significant benefits related to sustainability. See our sections on Water and Waste and Recycling for examples.

Employee Health and Safety

As with many companies, our most valuable asset is our employees. We have developed a global incident reporting database to facilitate reporting and provide information used in root cause analysis to prevent incidents from recurring in the future. This database tracks injuries and illnesses as well as environmental issues such as spills. We have also used the system to house “near miss” data so that we can better address areas where there are hazardous conditions.

This system, in combination with our Scorecard, has enabled Millipore to continually decrease incident rate and severity.

In addition, our Cork site has achieved OHSAS 18001 certification, a best practice management system aimed at achieving health and safety objectives by reducing risks to employees.

Emergency Preparedness

Similar to any company, we face risks that might impact our business. Being prepared for potential emergencies protects our employees and local communities, and ensures a continuity of supply to our customers. Emergency preparedness begins with site risk assessments to identify possible adverse events that might occur – such as involving business processes, technology, man-made and environmental events. Taking into account the likelihood of occurrence, we then develop appropriate controls to minimize those risks, such as process redundancy, robust design or technological innovations. There are risks that cannot be entirely eliminated. For these risks, we maintain highly trained emergency response teams. To minimize response time at key manufacturing sites, we maintain some of these capabilities in-house instead of relying on third party providers exclusively. This provides us with an advantage since the members of the response team are highly knowledgeable of processes and can react quickly and more effectively, reducing potential impacts to the business, human health and the environment. The success of our teams depends on high performance expectations, extensive internal and external training, employee pride in being involved in this essential activity, and a deep commitment to service. Indeed, many team members are also involved in disaster response activities outside Millipore, such as local fire departments, the Civilian Air Patrol and the U.S. Army Reserve. This allows them to share their abilities more broadly while further refining their skills.

Bedford, MA's Chemical Spill Response Team at a recent training at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy in Stow, MA.

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