Why Sustainability tipped the scales in favor of my internship

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow has brought together world leaders from across 100 countries to discuss reducing forestry, plastic waste, mining, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and much more. This conference has reminded me of a harrowing stat from three years ago. In 2018, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that 8 million tons of plastic ended up in our oceans, making up 80% of all marine debris, and this has only increased.[1]

This was a fact that acutely affected me, and as a recent university graduate, I knew that my choice of workplace would have to take an active role in reducing waste.

In 2016, the Paris Agreement preoccupied almost everyone in my school year. Our optimism was affected by the countries who chose to join, and the ones that chose to withdraw. However, five years on, the transition to a low-carbon economy is progressing well with ‘cleaner’ alternatives, such as wind and solar power. The fact that the energy that fuels companies is finite, and our exploitation of those resources is unsustainable, has finally been realised.

I knew, after 2016, that sustainability and global climate awareness would always be a central pillar of who I am.

So, five years on from the 2016 Paris agreement, in July 2021 I was delighted to receive three internship offers, one of which was from Cytiva. Each of these internships were with highly respected organisations, each with possibilities to grow. There were of course other things that made me favour Cytiva, but the thing that truly stood out to me was its pledge to sustainability. It was not a half-hearted pledge resigned to a small text box in the ‘About Us’ section, but a detailed, thought-out pledge with real, attainable goals.

Once I accepted, Cytiva’s pledge became even more apparent as I was surrounded by individuals who were just as committed to sustainability as I am. Forbes published an article on how this commitment was employee-led across most of the life science industry, where sustainability has become a widespread “corporate purpose”.

This purpose cannot be more poignant as The Scientist reported that every year the life sciences is estimated to produce about 5.5 million tons of plastic.[2] And in 2019, National Geographic published a damning article reporting that, globally, 91% of plastic is not recycled. This plastic waste has reached 6.3 billion metric tons, 79% of which has landed in landfills.[3]

Cytiva has outlined its own targets to minimise its own environmental impact. By 2025[4]:

· 100% of sites will be powered exclusively by renewable electricity.

· 100% of district steam, heating and cooling will be generated by renewable sources.

· 50% of single-use (disposable) plastic products and components will be widely acceptable for recycling or recycled through an accessible recycling stream.

· 50% of secondary packaging (for shipping) will be reusable or widely acceptable for recycling, 50% of plastic packaging will be made from recycled content. And 50% of wood, paper, and cardboard packaging will be made of recycled content or sustainably harvested from responsibly managed forests.

· There will be a 15% improvement in water efficiency across operations.

These targets are ambitious yet practical.

Reducing the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste is a responsibility shared by both industry and the individual alike. Cytiva has already acted.

In 2020, to extend the lifespan of its products, Cytiva diverted around 9564kg (21 000lbs) of materials from landfills by buying back old instruments from customers and refurbishing them.[5] This initiative provided start-ups and smaller companies with the chance to purchase more cost-effective equipment and instruments such as Biacore™ systems.

This refurbishment of equipment was discussed in an episode of Cytiva’s Discovery Matters podcast. Within the same episode, Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle™, discussed hard-to-recycle products from within the biopharmaceutical processes.

Tom explained why reducing these hard-to-recycle waste products is important. He noted that, in 2012, Philadelphia profited $67 a ton on its recyclables. However, Philadelphia now must pay $105 per ton to see the same material recycled. Without profit, there is less incentive to offer recycling in the city of Philadelphia and has seen a dramatic decrease in recycling services available. However, even with widespread recycling in place, there is a big difference between what you put in your recycling bin and what is actually recycled. A considerable amount still ends up in landfills.

As TerraCycle™ recycle or repurpose particularly difficult materials Cytiva has started working with them on recycling materials, such as syringe filters, that are usually difficult to recycle. Cytiva produces more than 25 million syringe filters every year, which have a variety of purposes from healthcare pharmacies to monitoring air pollution levels.[6] As these filters are single-use, Cytiva produced special Zero Waste Boxes, and asked customers to collect syringe filters in those boxes. The TerraCycle™ boxes are provided to labs to collect used filters, with each box containing up to approximately 10,000 syringe filters. Those recycled filters will be made into composite decking, shipping pallets, and compression moulding products amongst other things.

The feeling of personal responsibility towards sustainability has been shared by all the associates that I have met so far during my internship. Cytiva is clearly an organisation for which sustainability is an important topic. For example, as part of the 2020 Innovation Accelerator activity, Cytiva set out to invest USD 3.8 million in associate-led sustainability innovation.[7] This program will cover water use, chemicals, transforming product packaging, manufacturing, and much more to improve its sustainability.

Aside from the incredible work that Cytiva has done and facilitated across biotech and the life sciences, I am honestly privileged to work in a company that takes sustainability incredibly seriously. This commitment to minimise negative impact on the environment means that I do not have to compromise who I am. It has added to my optimism that change can be made, because it already is being made.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou

References…

[1] International Union for Conservation of Nature (2018), ‘Issues Brief: Marine Plastics’, IUCN Issue Briefs. Available at: https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/marine-plastics.

[2] Katarina Zimmer (2018), ‘Life Scientists Cut Down on Plastic Waste’, The Scientist. Available at: https://www.the-scientist.com/careers/life-scientists-cut-down-on-plastic-waste-64547.

[3] Laura Parker (2019), ‘A Whopping 91 Percent of Plastic Isn’t Recycled’, National Geographic Society. Available at: A Whopping 91 Percent of Plastic Isn’t Recycled | National Geographic Society.

[4] Cytiva, (2021) ‘Thriving Planet’. Available at: Environmental impacts for sustainability | Cytiva (cytivalifesciences.com).

[5] Cytiva (2021) ‘Remanufactured Life Sciences Equipment’. Available at: https://www.cytivalifesciences.com/en/us/about-us/sustainability/Environmental-impacts-for-sustainability/remanufactured-instruments.

[6] Cytiva (2021), ‘Recycling the Impossible’. Available at: Recycling the impossible | Cytiva (cytivalifesciences.com).

[7] Cytiva (2020), ‘Cytiva invests in sustainability innovation’. Available at: https://www.cytivalifesciences.com/en/us/news-center/cytiva-invests-in-sustainability-innovation-10001.