Our Performance
Sustainable Development
As a society we have an ever-urgent need to use our resources as efficiently as possible, so we can meet our own needs for development and progress without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
This concept, known as Sustainable Development, is particularly relevant to the way in which we build, maintain and operate our facilities in relation to aspects such as use of materials and energy.
Over the last few years, we have undertaken considerable building work at our Sandwich and Walton Oaks facilities. This has involved the handling of thousands of tonnes of demolition materials that we have recovered for reuse as part of new construction and landscaping. For example, as part of site developments at Sandwich, we successfully recovered 180,000 tonnes of material that would have normally gone directly to landfill disposal. Our sustainable approach to site development works has resulted in savings in the need to use new raw materials and the elimination of over 16,000 return lorry journeys. This not only made a significant contribution to improved traffic congestion, but also prevented over 1,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released from diesel exhausts.
We have now completed the landscaping and development works around our Sandwich facility. This has included a significant amount of tree and shrub-planting that has enhanced the visual impact of the facility and has also provided additional areas for informal meetings and relaxation.
Green Buildings
In 2006, Pfizer established a Global Green Buildings Team to review the challenges we face in constructing, refurbishing and operating our buildings. This has resulted in the establishment of formal reviews at project design stages of each project to identify opportunities for building-in efficiencies that deliver lower environmental impacts e.g. lower energy use over the life time of the operation of our buildings.
During 2007 continued to embed our Sandwich based Green Buildings processes. Of particular note was the “recycle” of a complete building know at B143.This building dates back to the early days of operations at Sandwich and was most notable as the “home” of TCP production.
Pfizer designers and project managers have now transformed the building to latest construction specifications including high energy efficiency standards.
The building is now home to the development of a new generation of devices to deliver inhaled medicines e.g. for asthma.
The project was awarded a Pfizer Global Green Buildings Award to recognise
Wildlife and Conservation
During the last ten years there has been significant building work at our Sandwich site. An important part of these development works has been the protection and conservation of the valuable wildlife.. This principally included the migration of water voles, a protected and an increasingly rare species in the UK. This Sandwich-based project used wildlife experts to advise on the most effective way to relocate the water voles and reintroduce them into the surrounding dyke systems, once construction work was complete. This work has proved to be very successful with a number of pairs of water voles fully re-established since the construction works.
We have also conducted surveys to identify reptiles as a part of ongoing site works. In the UK, we sponsor and part-manage nature reserves, at our Sandwich and Walton Oaks sites. Since 1996, an annual bird and wildlife survey has been undertaken by an independent consultant and has demonstrated the ongoing success of our conservation activities in providing habitats for a wide variety of flora and fauna. In 2007 we commissioned a bio-diversity report in relation to the adjacent nature reserve.. This report highlighted a number of the important species to be found on the reserve
A wildlife group of Pfizer staff is also very active in highlighting sightings of wildlife across the site. We communicate our wildlife and conservation activities in a bi-annual newsletter to staff and and via our wildlife group intranet website.
