“You learn exactly what you want to pursue in your career.” That’s what Vincent Hoderny, former Lakeland University chemistry student, had to say about his cooperative (co-op) experience at the Sheboygan Falls site of MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
Integrating a focus on sustainability throughout all phases of a product’s life cycle introduces continuous innovation in the forms of greener product alternatives, more sustainable packaging and distribution, and expanded recycling and reuse programs.
Fabien Thibault, global manager, product and packaging sustainability at MilliporeSigma
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Across industries, sustainability is becoming an increasing expectation. From reducing emissions to increasing recycling, both businesses and consumers are looking for ways in which they can reduce their environmental impact. But when it comes to products and packaging in the life science industry, developing sustainable solutions while meeting transit and safety regulation requirements is an ongoing challenge.
Now, imagine the complexity of executing this process for more than 300,000 products and 2.5 million SKUs along with associated packaging.
In April 2019, the Life Science business of Merck* launched a four-year initiative that was aimed at improving its sustainability efforts when it came to packaging. For a global business shipping around 30,000 packages every day, the task was enormous. From reducing the overall amount of packaging it was using, maximising recycling, improving plastics sustainability and even targeting zero deforestation, the initiative was a statement of intent by the business to begin to understand its environmental impact – and do something about it.
