Environmental Performance: Materials

Total Materials Use

For many years, Bristol-Myers Squibb has worked to reduce the toxicity, risks, and hazards of materials we purchase for use in our products and processes. We also are pursuing opportunities to address resource conservation and eco-efficiency of nonhazardous materials.

Packaging Use

Bristol-Myers Squibb is committed to reducing the negative impacts of our packaging on the environment. We believe that this can be accomplished through source reduction using innovative packaging design, increasing recycled content, and moving toward more environmentally friendly packaging components. An example of this type of project occurred at the Mead Johnson facility in Nijmegen, Netherlands, which reduced the thickness of metal cans for its nutritional products and thereby eliminated 152,000 kilograms of packaging. We will be developing companywide metrics to track our progress on similar product, process, and packaging initiatives.

PVC Use

Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, has been a component of many plastic products and packaging for years. Although the scientific results are not definitive, there is a call among some stakeholders for companies to eliminate PVCs from products and their packaging because of potential health concerns.

We have met with stakeholder groups who want us to eliminate our use of PVC. We have made progress in this area, with the potential for more action in the future. To date, Bristol-Myers Squibb has reduced the use of PVC in blister-pack packaging for medicines and has eliminated the use of PVC packaging trays. We also have found vendors who do not use PVC in the standard plastic bottles used to package pills, and we have moved away from PVC secondary packaging for physician samples.

The drive to reduce PVC use is part of the company's commitment to develop and manufacture more sustainable products.

Use of Recycled Material

We are working to meet our goal to increase post-consumer recycled packaging use. In addition, we strive to increase the procurement and use of recycled material whenever feasible. We use recycled paperboard packaging for many of our consumer products. All domestic facilities, and an increasing number of international sites, use materials with recycled content. In addition to product packaging, recycled materials are used in office supplies and building materials.

Renewable Materials

Renewable raw materials (also known as biomass) are organic materials from plant or animal sources that can be used in part or as a whole as raw materials for industry or as energy carriers. Unlike fossil raw materials, they are renewed annually or are readily replenished.

Bristol-Myers Squibb is committed to increasing the use of renewable materials in its products and processes. One example of this commitment is TAXOL® (paclitaxel). When the National Cancer Institute chose Bristol-Myers Squibb to be the commercial developer of TAXOL® in 1991, the drug was manufactured from the bark of a yew tree found in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, removing the bark killed the tree. Because the Pacific yew grows within the habitat of the Spotted Owl, harvesting the bark potentially threatened the home of a federally protected and endangered species.

In addition, projected demand for this remarkable, life-extending drug far exceeded the potential supply available from tree bark. Add to this the company's concerns about the dependability and consistency of supply, and Bristol-Myers Squibb felt compelled to find an alternative source of paclitaxel for commercial production.

Under the agreement with the National Cancer Institute, we pledged to develop a more environmentally sustainable supply of paclitaxel within five to eight years. Instead, the company met its goal in half that time. In 1994, we received U.S. approval for a new process to manufacture the drug made from cultivated yew shrub twigs and needles. Using cultivated yews improves the consistency and quality of the raw material.

Several major environmental benefits resulted from this initiative. By using twigs and needles from shrubs instead of bark as the source, trees are unharmed when harvesting the raw material. This not only protects the yew tree, it also greatly increases the long-term supply of available raw material. The new process also requires less raw material than the original process and the ecosystem of the Spotted Owl is not compromised.

Bristol-Myers Squibb continues to devote resources to develop processes that are more reliable, eco-efficient, and sustainable.

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