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day, it makes sense for Merck to improve its packaging sustainability. Pharma might have emerged so far unscathed from any media scandals regarding environmentalism but this isn’t guaranteed to last, especially in an age where a company’s reputation can be brought down by a single tweet. That’s why Merck is looking to invest in new methods and technologies to reduce the amount of packaging excess it creates. “In our distribution centres we are investigating solutions like packaging on demand, the types of innovative solutions that can create the distribution box that can be used to ship your product, case-by-case,” Thibault said. According to Thibault, the idea is to create packaging that is the perfect fit for a customer’s product, and which optimises the use of corrugated and excess material. And while changes to the company’s operations might be invisible to the customer, Thibault states that this too ‘has an impact’. He cites examples such as notifying packaging teams to be more aware of the amount of packaging they’re using and also of the excess materials used during manufacturing. “This is something that is not visible to our customers but we are looking at optimising this internal packaging to reduce the amount of packaging we use, for instance when we ship a material from a distribution centre to another,” Thibault said. With a deadline of 2022 it will be interesting to see what conversations emerge around pharma’s role in protecting the environment. Industries like food and beverage have so far been at the forefront of environmental concerns and Whitford believes
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there is ample opportunity to learn from their mistakes. “I think one of the good opportunities here is how do you take what we’ve learned from the food and beverage debate and figure out how it’s worked in this space and is applicable to this use case,” he said. Whether the industry follows suit and improves its environmental standing is still up for debate but Whitford certainly hopes so. “We hope the industry follows suit but while it is a competitive advantage, at the end of the day, what we want is what’s better for the global ecosystem and landscape. And that is more people making changes and if we can help lead that, that’s probably one of the highest compliments we can be paid.” *The life science business of Merck operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada.
Pharma might have emerged so far unscathed from any media scandals regarding environmentalism but this isn’t guaranteed to last, especially in an age where a company’s reputation can be brought down by a single tweet.