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Choosing a partner that helps support your sustainability goals

By 12.20.2022
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Sustainability is a shared responsibility

A commitment to social responsibility shapes the goals of most companies you encounter, including companies that provide OEM services. Many claim to prioritize reducing their environmental impact, saving energy, and developing economic and social practices that support a long-term vision of humans coexisting safely and harmoniously on planet Earth. This comprehensive set of corporate responsibility goals and efforts is often referred to collectively as “sustainability.”

We want to focus specifically on one aspect of sustainability: environmental. After all, when you are developing a diagnostic or life science solution, partnering with the right OEM and commercial supply company can make all the difference. The right partner can provide access to high-quality raw materials, security of supply chain, and experienced professionalism in supporting your product development—and can also help you meet your own sustainability goals. We believe our commitment to environmental sustainability helps make our company the right global OEM partner for your life sciences product development.

Thermo Fisher Scientific 2030 Climate Goal

Click to view: 2030 Climate Goal

As the world leader in serving science, we not only believe environmental sustainability is a necessary aim, we are taking concrete steps to reduce our environmental impact. Most importantly, we’re working toward meeting our goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. We encourage you to review our efforts to minimize our environmental impact. As a company, we continually invest in technology, products, and people in support of our Mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer; and our commitment to operating with integrity has long included a focus on the environment, which must be at the heart of a meaningful sustainable growth strategy.

Case in point: Thermo Fisher recently revealed a new agreement  to purchase approximately 400,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable electricity generated by wind power in Oklahoma, equal to half of the company’s current US electricity needs. As part of our strategy to reduce our emissions footprint, Thermo Fisher plans to eventually transition most locations globally to renewable energy.

Click to view: Annual CSR Report

Today, more than 60 sites worldwide are fully powered by renewable electricity, including seven facilities that generate 3.5 MW of solar power and 3 MW of wind energy, with another 15 MW of solar power projects planned.

So what does this mean for you? Most importantly, our efforts to reduce our emissions footprint, reduce waste, save energy, and provide greener product options means that when you partner with us, you can help support your own sustainability goals. Whatever commercialization phase you are in, you want to make the best decisions for your long-term growth, which include meeting internal company goals and regulatory demands to work toward net-zero emissions. You also want to make the most of your operating budget, and the bottom line is that sustainable business practices improve efficiency and reduce waste, which can save money.

A Thermo Fisher business development manager on examples of sustainability efforts

We recently asked Thermo Fisher business development manager Simon Newell, who supports customers with license and commercial supply opportunities in the UK, Ireland, and Nordic territories, to share some specific examples of how Thermo Fisher sustainability initiatives are helping customers in OEM partnerships.

Sustainability regulations

First, Simon mentioned an OEM customer specializing in molecular diagnostics for gut health. To qualify to sell their diagnostic tools for use in government healthcare programs, they needed to show that they are working with environmentally conscious suppliers, demonstrating recycling efforts, taking steps to reduce the impacts of transport, and participating in independent certification programs. Thermo Fisher provided robust evidence and documentation to help them meet that qualification.

That ability to help navigate regulatory challenges—a key to meeting sustainability goals—is a key advantage of working with a company with the breadth of experience and resources of Thermo Fisher. Likewise, our extensive global presence can help localize solutions to reduce energy consumption from transport.

Cooler packaging

Simon cites a commercial supply customer who reached out to us to tell us how much they liked our alternative to expanded polystyrene foam packaging; they appreciated receiving products from Thermo Fisher Scientific safely packaged in our patented 100% paper, recyclable, cold shipping containers. The paper cooler has already been used successfully to ship more than 2,000,000 temperature-sensitive product orders. This innovative 100% paper, readily recyclable cooler meets the thermal requirements necessary to uphold our stringent product quality standards yet can also be recycled alongside other paper and corrugate materials. In addition, every 10,000 paper coolers we ship keeps more than 6,500 ft of expanded polystyrene (EPS)  from landfills.

Innovations for improving global reach

Likewise, Thermo Fisher’s investment in innovative solutions can save on energy and costs, such as our comprehensive portfolio of lyophilization-compatible (lyo-ready) reverse transcriptases (RTs) and thermostable DNA polymerases. “I am currently working with customers to improve the availability of infectious disease testing in warm climates such as Africa,” Simon explained. “Lyophilized assay solutions from our Vilnius plant enable more localized delivery, which helps us avoid energy-sapping cold storage shipping and extend the shelf life of the assay. Both of these can help reduce the cost for the customers, while supporting the reach of testing where it is greatly needed.”

Streamlining diagnostics with advanced technologies

Another Thermo Fisher innovation designed to support human health that has a potential environmental benefit is next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. “We have a new customer working to develop cancer-detecting panels on an Ion Torrent™ NGS system,” Simon explained. “It is in early stages, but if successful, it could not only help clinicians determine the likelihood of a patient contracting cancer, it could help the clinician advise the customer on how often they need to be tested, and—if they are identified as lower risk—potentially reduce the need for testing from every year to every five (5) years. In addition, less testing could save health care providers time, travel, and testing costs, and that has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of energy used in clinical diagnostics for cancer.”

These exciting examples reveal how the depth and breadth of our experience and access to our vast ecosystem of internal resources and product brands enable us to help our customers navigate and meet myriad challenges with a fundamental focus on how we can support their sustainability goals.

Simon is one of our dedicated business managers in a specific territory. Wherever you are in the world, Thermo Fisher supports your entire workflow with technical professionals and many options for instrumentation and consumables, both off-the-shelf and customized, backed by our years of industry experience, as well as our commitment to sustainability.

To find out more about meeting your sustainability goals with us as your OEM and commercial supply partner, contact our team.

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