PPD – Michelle Faurot – 2018

Goals

PPD is a leading global contract research organization providing comprehensive, integrated drug development, laboratory and lifecycle management services, with clients and partners including pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, academic and government organizations. PPD’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team has been reviewing PPD’s overall environmental footprint and resource use.  Although PPD local offices have tackled projects to save energy, PPD realized the importance of aligning sustainability efforts across all sites.  EDF fellow, Michelle Faurot, was brought on board to calculate greenhouse gas emissions and make reductions recommendations across the company.

Solutions

To calculate the company’s carbon footprint, Faurot reviewed Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions data for all offices and emissions related to employee work-related travel. Faurot worked with team members from across the globe and collaborated closely with other departments and suppliers to aggregate the data and identify gaps.  She found that Scope 3 activities, which included some shipping of materials and employee travel (both important for day-to-day work), were responsible for the most emissions.

Faurot helped PPD create an environmental report, which highlighted successful ongoing initiatives.

Potential Impact

Thanks to Faurot’s analysis, PPD has a better picture of its total carbon footprint and insight on where to concentrate reduction efforts. Current initiatives are saving an estimated 110,000 kWh, over 450 metric tons CO2-e, and almost $500,000 in expenses annually. Moving forward, PPD is researching methods for maintaining annual reporting and researching various Energy Management Systems.