Global Citizenship

Our Priorities Safeguarding the Environment

Abbott’s facilities work to reduce the company’s global environmental impacts around the world – from sourcing to manufacturing and distribution, to use and disposal of our products and packaging. Here an employee in our manufacturing plant in Goa, India, monitors the cooling system.

Abbott works diligently to reduce our global environmental impacts – from the sourcing of raw materials, to the manufacture and distribution of our products, to the use and disposal of our products by consumers and health care providers. Our environmental stewardship initiatives help protect the planet while improving efficiency, reducing costs and preserving our ability to do business in the future.

We have three environmental priorities:

• Climate change
• Water usage
• Product stewardship

We recognize the interrelated nature of these three priorities. Our work in one area inevitably affects the others. We have developed comprehensive management and governance systems to ensure that environmental considerations are fully integrated into our day-to-day planning and business processes.

2015 Goals and Performance Data

Abbott consistently sets challenging environmental performance targets. In 2009, having achieved our previous goals well ahead of schedule, we established a new series of targets to further minimize our environmental impacts by 2015. Key targets for 2015 from a 2005 baseline include:

• Reducing absolute carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) emissions (from direct emissions or sources we own or control and from electricity we purchase) by 15 percent.
• Cutting total water intake by 50 percent (adjusted for growth).
• Reducing total waste by 50 percent (adjusted for growth) and achieving at least five zero-waste-to-landfill plants.

We will continue to measure our environmental progress against these targets for the next four years.

Key Environmental Metrics

Assurance Statement