Page 300 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

276 Cha pte r F o u r tee n

Leading-Edge Environmental Practices
Energy Efficiency
Lilly has focused on improving the energy efficiency of the nine plants
that account for 86% of its total energy use. These operations are rela-
tively energy and water intensive since they use biological processes
such as fermentation to produce natural and biotechnology products.
Since 2006, the company has invested nearly $18 million in 44 energy
conservation projects that are delivering $10 million in annual savings.
Examples of successful projects include cogeneration, lighting man-
agement systems, and high-efficiency chiller systems. One plant in the
United Kingdom purchased imported electricity (to meet about 82%
of its needs) from a renewable energy source (hydroelectric) with zero
carbon emissions. The other 18% was provided by an efficient on-site
combined heat and power plant that ran primarily on natural gas.

Design for Process Safety
Pharmaceutical bulk manufacturing typically uses reactive chemistry
involving quantities of hazardous materials and may also have recov-
ery operations for solvents that are flammable and/or toxic. There-
fore, process equipment designers and engineers need to ensure
adequate safeguards against the loss of containment. Lilly developed
a Globally Integrated Process Safety Management system, a set of
practices that go beyond compliance by addressing hazardous pro-
cesses from the design stage, during start-up, and throughout their
operating life. Since 2001, additional practices, such as Inherently
Safer Design and Layer of Protection Analysis have been imple-
mented. The result has been a five-fold reduction in process safety
management issues since 2002.
Product Stewardship
Lilly developed a Product Stewardship Standard to identify and pre-
vent potential health, safety, and environmental (HSE) disruptions
along a product’s value chain, which might interfere with meeting
patient needs. The Standard considers the full product life cycle
including discovery and development, procurement, packaging, dis-
tribution, marketing, and sales. It also considers the needs of custom-
ers, suppliers, contract operations, and alliances, and incorporates
business continuity planning. The Standard distributes responsibility
for managing HSE aspects across each value chain functional group.
This decentralized approach strengthens the organization’s ability to
integrate HSE into its business processes.

Applying Green Chemistry for Source Reduction
Lilly believes that the largest improvements in its environmental
and safety profile will be driven by new production processes that
are inherently safer, use fewer resources, and result in less waste.
The company strives to discover and develop such processes by