Carbon neutrality: Our journey to 2030
Our world is changing due at least in part to a warming climate, and we are stepping up to meet the resulting challenges. “As a healthcare company, it is impossible not to recognize the connection between the planet’s health and ours,” says Declan Daly, Director, Operations Support, Ireland Operations. “We have only one earth — we must do what we can to care for it.”
In 2020, we stepped up to the challenge — developing the roadmap to adopt an ambitious carbon reduction goal. The result is a commitment to achieve a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions (scopes 1 and 2) by 2024 and for all Stryker facilities to be carbon neutral (scopes 1 and 2) by 2030.
“This is a huge challenge,” says Erol Odabasi, Director, Corporate Sustainability, “and we are finding ways to address it. We are taking action.”
We have already made great strides toward reducing our carbon footprint. In 2019, our energy contracts in Ireland were approaching their expiration. Our Ireland Operations and our Indirect Procurement teams worked together to look for alternative options with renewable electricity. The result was a 5-year contract with one of the largest suppliers in Ireland to purchase electricity generated by wind turbine farms.
“This was the right thing to do, environmentally, and as it turns out, financially,” said Mike Sladen-York, Senior Director, Indirect Procurement. “The renewable energy contract not only substantially reduces the carbon footprint of operations in Ireland but also locks in a long-term electricity cost saving as well. We are also proud to support the local economy by utilizing renewable power generated from wind turbine farms located in Ireland.”
The move reduces the Irish operations footprint by about 20,000 tons of carbon emissions per year, the equivalent of removing 4,000 cars from the road, realizing an overall reduction of 10 percent of Stryker’s scopes 1 and 2 carbon emissions. And our GQO sites in Duisburg, Germany are powered by hydroelectric energy sourced from Norway. As of the end of 2020, renewable energy supplies over 15 percent of our electricity use across Stryker.
Carbon neutrality goals
20%
reduction by 2024* for all Stryker facilities
Neutral
by 2030* for all Stryker facilities
To achieve our new goals, we will also need to continue to explore new energy efficiency and conservation opportunities. “At our Irish facilities, we have aggressively pursued energy conservation and efficiency efforts, including installing LED lighting and light sensors throughout all facilities and using variable speed drives and motors on select equipment,” said Niall Walsh, Senior Operations Manager, Joint Replacement. “We have installed heat recovery systems to reduce natural gas usage and undertaken an aggressive program to decommission old or redundant equipment, replacing it with more energy-efficient machines. These efforts have been very successful in reducing our energy demands.”
Engaging our employees will be critical. Like many of our global facilities, the teams in Ireland are installing electric charging stations and working with other businesses and the government to facilitate and promote public transport instead of personal cars. “To truly succeed, we have to change individual behavior,” said Erol Odabasi. “The increased awareness of climate change is helping; employees are highly engaged and submitting many exciting ideas that can be impactful to reducing Stryker’s carbon footprint. This is how we can set a tone across all our facilities, harnessing all these initiatives. It’s very exciting to be part of it.”
*Scope 1 (direct site emissions) and Scope 2 (electricity use) carbon emissions; baseline year 2019; excludes Wright Medical