Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked questions about environmental sustainability and what it means to our business. Find the answer you're looking for among the following categories.

If you can't find what you're looking for, please contact us.

Climate

Do you disclose GHG (Green House Gases) emissions?

Yes, we disclose our greenhouse gas emissions on this website, and also through external voluntary reporting, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders program, and through the Carbon Disclosure Project.

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What targets have you set for GHG reduction?

We announced a GHG reduction target of 20% by 2011 using 2006 as a baseline year. Our target is expressed in absolute reduction of GHG emissions. We plan to meet this target through energy efficiency projects, our focused factory initiative, manufacturing process improvements, fleet vehicle changes, and using renewable energy.

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Does Millipore disclose its emissions?

We disclose emissions that are covered by laws in the areas where we do business. For instance, in the U.S., we disclose data to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, or TRI.

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Does Millipore use renewable energy for its factories?

Yes. In 2008, we purchased approximately 11,000 MWh of Green-e renewable energy certificates (REC) generated from the Judith Gap Wind Facility in Harlowton, Montana. This energy matches total 2007 usage from our facilities in Danvers, Massachusetts, Temecula and Anderson, California, St. Charles, Missouri, and a portion of our headquarters in Billerica, Massachusetts. This equates to about 10% of our energy usage worldwide.
A small portion of the electricity we use is generated from renewable energy. This is higher for sites in New Hampshire and California, due to the mix of where those states get their power. We are interested in adding more renewable energy to our overall mix.

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How is Millipore addressing climate change?

We are looking at this through a mulit-part approach. Please see our section on Climate Change.

Contact

How can I contact someone with a question?

We’d love to hear from you! Please go to our contact page for information.

Facilities

Does Millipore have manufacturing in Asia?

Millipore closed its manufacturing facility in Japan in 2004. We do operate a joint venture manufacturing facility in Bangalore, India.

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Does Millipore have LEED certified buildings?

No, we do not have any LEED certified facilities—yet. We are looking at LEED certification for our renovations in our Bedford, MA facilities. During construction of our new R&D center in Bedford, MA, we used guidance from the USGBC, and incorporated many “green” building design concepts.

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Does Millipore own or lease its buildings?

Both. Of our total worldwide portfolio, Millipore owns about two-thirds, and leases one-third. We feel each type offers opportunities for reducing environmental impact, though.

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Does Millipore have any remediation it is conducting?

We are currently conducting remediation of a trichloroethylene (TCE) release at our Molsheim, France facility. For more details, please see our page on remediation.

General Questions

Why is Millipore interested in sustainability?

We feel that being a sustainable company is the right thing to do, but it’s also an opportunity for us to save money (such as through reducing waste), improve employee satisfaction, and develop a competitive advantage. On top of these motivations, as a life sciences company, we think being sustainable is part of the value we bring to our customers and the world.

It’s that simple.

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Making money off a sustainability program sounds like “greenwashing” – is it?

We realize that our customers are highly educated, and they too are interested in how to reduce their own footprint on the Earth. If we can help with that, we know that everyone can prosper. At the same time, we will not over commit to what we can accomplish, or what we’re already doing. Our core values—which every Millipore employee is measured on—include integrity, innovation, passion and execution. We feel these, and our philosophy of Advancing Life Science Together™, mesh well with sustainability.

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How is the sustainability program structured?

Millipore’s CEO, Martin Madaus, PhD, is the Corporate Executive Committee sponsor for the sustainability program. David Newman, Director, Sustainability, is the leader for this effort, and coordinates a corporate team of representatives from sites in the US and Europe. Sustainability is a team effort: we have over 30 fulltime EHS staff worldwide, and 6 full-time global properties staff.

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What is your corporate vision on sustainability?

Please go to Our Vision page for details on this.

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Where can I get more information about sustainability?

We’ve put some links from our “Favorites” menu for you to look through in the More to Explore section. We’ll keep adding more as we get more from our staff, worldwide. We hope you enjoy using these, as well.

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What does Millipore see as its biggest sustainability challenges?

As a manufacturing company, we see plenty of challenges ahead in running a profitable, industry-leading company, but doing it in a sustainable manner. For instance, we need to use lots of water to make our products—that’s not going to change. But, we can get smarter about wasting less, recycling it, and even reusing water from reject RO systems. We need electricity to run our plants, but we can get smarter about reducing our demand through subtle changes: optimizing compressed air systems, upgrading HVAC units, and installing automatic lighting systems.

We believe that in all challenges, opportunities are created.

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Is Millipore claiming leadership in sustainability?

No, we aren’t, but we see ourselves as advancing and learning together, and improving along the way. We have a long way to go. We can claim the title of “Learnership”, though!

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When was Millipore started?

Millipore was founded in 1954. Our headquarters are in Billerica, Massachusetts, USA. For more information on our company, please visit our company information section.

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Millipore makes filters, right?

Most people know about Millipore’s filters, but we do a lot more! We still make those little round membrane disks you used in the lab, but now Millipore makes a wide variety of tools to support life science research. For instance, instruments to make clean water for laboratories, antibody test kits, cell signaling and GPCR services, reagents and kits for drug discovery, and filtration and separation devices for Bioproduction.

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Where are you located? Mostly in the US?

We have facilities in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, and sales offices around the world.

ISO

Are you ISO 14001 Certified?

Millipore’s three largest manufacturing facilities, where we have much of our environmental impact, are each ISO 14001 certified. These include:

Cork, Ireland – manufactures membranes, and bioscience sample-prep and biotools

Jaffrey, New Hampshire – manufacturers ultrafiltration membranes and bioprocess filtration and separation products

Molsheim, France – manufactures filtration products, microbiological testing products, large-scale custom hardware and labwater purification products

All other facilities are also required to implement EHS Management Systems, and these are measured on a quarterly basis.

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Will other sites become ISO 14001 Certified?

At this point, we do not have any plans to become ISO 14001 certified at our other facilities. We do not see that the impact at a smaller facility will justify the effort and cost.

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Who are your ISO registrars?

Our registrars are LRQA in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, Irish Standards Institute in Cork, Ireland, and AFAQ/AFNOR in Molsheim, France.

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Do you make your EHS policy public?

Yes, we do. Our manufacturing sites post a copy of the EHS policy, and we publish it online too.

Metrics

What environmental metrics do you track?

We track a wide range of environmental indicators including energy, water, waste, and direct GHG emissions. We also track environmental incidents, such as spills, inspections with citations, air releases, and neighbor complaints. Our environmental indicators are tracked through a custom web-based database that we built. Incidents are tracked along with health and safety incidents, and included in a monthly review at our Global Supply Chain Executive Committee review. Incident rates are also reviewed annually by our Board of Directors.

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Do you have a 3rd party audit of your metrics?

No, we don’t use third party auditors for our metrics.

Organization

Does Millipore have full-time environmental professionals?

Yes, we have over 30 EHS professionals worldwide.

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What is your EHS organization?

All of our larger plants have an EHS staff that works fulltime. EHS staff report directly to our Corporate Director of EHS, who reports to our Corporate Director of Sustainability. EHS falls within Millipore’s Global Supply Chain Organization, which manages the entire flow of products from order placement, to purchasing, to manufacturing, logistics, and receivables.

Other

How can I work for Millipore?

If you’re reading this site, you’re halfway there! Please link over to our careers section for more information.

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How does Millipore ensure that wastes are managed properly at vendor sites?

We have recently been accepted to CHWMEG, Inc., a non-profit industry consortium that will help ensure proper disposal and recycling of waste.

Products

What is Millipore doing about disposable manufacturing and the environment?

We are not yet certain of the impacts of stainless vs. disposable assemblies. We know from our test labs that less water, caustic materials and steam are consumed when using single-use assemblies. But, we also know that the solid waste is greater from disposing of the plastic in these types of assemblies. We are currently conducting a lifecycle comparison of these two approaches, and also investigating options for product recycling at end of life.

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Where can I find info on products with environmental applications?

Although our largest market segment is life sciences (drug discovery and manufacturing) Millipore also has a number of products used for Environmental Applications, such as groundwater sampling, aerosol sampling and microbiological sampling products. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refers to Millipore products in their test methods.

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Where can I get info on WEEE and RoHS?

Millipore has set up a specific webpage to help our customers dispose of electric and electronic equipment waste. If you’re a customer in the European Union, and would like information on managing an electronic product, please link over to our WEEE page for information. We are working on a similar page for RoHS compliance, please check back soon.

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What about China’s RoHS Directives?

Millipore has determined that its products are not on the target “Scope of Products” list published by the Chinese government. As such, our products are not subject to the China RoHS requirements.

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Why doesn’t Millipore use recycled content in products?

Although there is growing interest in using reground plastics in our products, there are several limitations to doing so. Most of our products are used in bioscience research, in FDA controlled IVD products, or used in FDA-controlled manufacturing processes. As such, there are safety concerns over using regrind in any product that touches a therapeutic (e.g., vaccine or cancer treatment) fluid path. We hope to look at other alternatives for where we can use recycled content plastics.

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Does Millipore make products that are hazardous?

We do manufacture several products that contain hazardous ingredients. Please refer to our Technical Library to look up the MSDS for your specific product to determine how you should handle it. Or, contact a technical service representative for more help.

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Why do Millipore products have several layers of packaging?

Some of our product is packaged in sterile conditions or contain hazardous components, so additional layers of protection are needed to ensure safety during transport and sterility upon arrival at the customer's site. We're studying our packaging practices to identify opportunities for improvement. To see an example, visit the Product Lifecycle section.

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Can I reuse my Millipore product? How should I dispose of my filtration/purification product?

Only some products can be reused, and many require special considerations for disposal. Please contact your sales engineer or our technical service line for assistance.

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Do you take back electronic products at the end of their lives?

Yes, please link over to our WEEE/RoHS page to learn more about Millipore’s programs in this area.

Safety

Where are Millipore’s accident statistics?

We publish our global TCIR (Total Case Incidence Rate) on the Management Systems section. If you have a specific need for this information, such as if you are a customer with Millipore scientists on site, please contact us directly.

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Are you OHSAS 18000 certified?

Our Cork, Ireland facility has been certified to the OHSAS 18000 Occupational Health and Safety standard.

Website

Will you provide more information?

Yes, we will update our website on an ongoing basis. Please check back as we provide more information. If you see something missing or if you have an idea of what you would like to see, we encourage you to let us know.

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Who wrote and designed your website?

Our website was written and designed by a multi-talented team, including EHS staff from Millipore, technical, marketing, sales, R&D and Facilities employees. We also got help from our outside writer, David Hudson, and our strategy consulting firm, Wolff-Olins.

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Metrics

News

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