MEDIQ

While our own operations have a relatively low impact on the environment, we are alert to opportunities to reduce our environmental impact in areas where we have the greatest influence. These have been defined as packaging, waste, and transport.

Packaging
Mediq is responsible for the purchasing and distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. We receive goods and use different kinds of packaging materials at our distribution centres to prepare them for further shipment. Packaging can be either for multiple use or single use. Multiple use packaging is mainly used within our B2B process and is reused in our processes. Single use packaging is packaging that we use and pass through to the customer. Packaging materials used consist of materials such as cardboard, paper and plastics. In our B2B segment, we apply mostly multiple use packaging materials.

Waste
The goods that we purchase are delivered in packages that we unwrap and repackage. The unwrapping process leads to waste. Our distribution activities are responsible for most of the waste that we generate. A significant amount of the waste we produce, such as paper and cardboard, is suitable for reuse. Aside from reusable waste, we also produce some non-reusable waste related to our core business, for instance medication waste. We aim to increase the proportion of waste suitable for reuse. To this end, our policy involves raising internal awareness about waste management and working with reputable waste collectors that have an environmental focus. 

Transport
Our logistics processes are part of our core business. We distribute goods to businesses and organisations including hospitals, care homes and pharmacies as well as directly to patients. Transport is mainly by trucks and vans and, depending on the local situation, is fully or partly outsourced. Our influence is greatest on transport that we carry out ourselves and transport which is outsourced, but solely carries Mediq goods. We have less influence on group transport in which shipments from various companies are combined.

In the Netherlands, where we hardly use group transport, the distances travelled are decreasing because of our focus on better planning. There is close monitoring and guidance on kilometres travelled. The transport planning system we introduced in 2008 for our pharmaceutical wholesale activities in the Netherlands helped us reduce CO2 emissions in three consecutive years. In 2010, we reduced CO2 emissions by 100 tons compared to the previous year. In the coming years, we will continue to focus on decreasing the transport distances we can most readily influence in our worldwide group companies.