MSD

MSD

See Green, Be Green

MSD Ireland’s ‘See Green, Be Green’ campaign is an enterprise-wide initiative to embed sustainability in operations to create a green and healthy future

Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year. In order to contribute towards reversing the damage done and move to a future where humankind operates within Earth’s ecological limits, MSD have targeted their activities with the ‘See Green, Be Green’ initiative, which launched on Earth Day 2021 and was followed by a special webinar held to mark Ireland’s Overshoot Day in May 2021.

‘See Green, Be Green’ has four key strands to address environmental concerns: culture, carbon transition, biodiversity, and waste and water. The sustainability strands are sponsored by the MSD Ireland country leadership team, consisting of plant and/or site directors across all six MSD Ireland locations. Sustainability teams have been formed at each site and representatives are allocated to each ‘See Green, Be Green’ workstream. Sustainability performance is on equal footing with quality, safety, plant performance and customer delivery. Each site has a sustainability plan to help the company reduce carbon emissions and reach carbon neutrality in its operations by 2025. Each site has an approved plan to help support the goal to become carbon neutral for Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions in line with MSD’s global corporate goals (Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by the company. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain.)

LIVING SUSTAINABLY During the year, MSD Ireland partnered with Grow It Yourself (GIY) to educate all employees on living sustainably. MSD sponsored the provision of Grow Boxes, enabling employees to grow their own vegetables at home during 2021. In all, 350 employees availed of the offer to grow many different vegetables. MSD sites competed for points using the GIY app by completing growing challenges and quizzes. All employees were invited to monthly GIY online seminars to learn about food sustainability, food packaging waste, sustainable shopping, and farming challenges. These activities created a buzz and employees shared their pictures and stories helping to raise sustainability awareness in MSD Ireland. This year, MSD have kicked off their webinar series in an effort to highlight individual case studies of employees’ sustainability stories.

Furthermore, all employees are entitled to 40 paid hours per year for approved community volunteering and litter picking events are organised with Leave No Trace and Clean Coasts for all those who wish to participate. ‘See Green, Be Green’ has taken MSD’s sustainability goals to the next level and Ireland is now a best practice case in the global MSD group.