- Signatory of the Sustainable IT Charter
Large company
Pharmaceutical industry
8561 contributors
Anderlecht, Belgique
jamie.martino@ucb.com
Presentation
UCB’s ambition is to transform the lives of people living with severe diseases, allowing them to live the best life that they can – as free as possible from the challenges and uncertainty of disease. That commitment comes to life in our research and development activities across neurology, immunology and other areas where our expertise, innovation and ambition align with unmet needs.
UCB is continuously working to advance science and embrace new knowledge, bringing passion and leadership to solving the challenges that matter to people living with severe diseases. We are leveraging scientific advances and new technologies in areas including genetics, biomarkers and human biology. Continually inspired by those we serve to bring differentiated solutions with unique outcomes that deliver tangible, positive impacts.
At UCB, we take our responsibility to the planet very seriously. Our goal is to develop and produce medicines for people with severe diseases in the most environmentally sustainable way possible. This means reducing our carbon footprint, our water consumption and our waste production across the company. We have set clear, absolute targets to measure our progress, focusing on the activities we can control directly. Our environmental commitments by 2030 are to: reduce CO2 emissions and become carbon neutral for the operations we control directly by 2030 while having 60% of the emissions created by our suppliers covered by SBTi-like targets by 2025; reduce water withdrawal by 20% by 2030; and reduce waste production by 25% by 2030.
Our IT for the Planet program ensures that the optimal use of IT is a part of our global strategy, embedded in the way we conduct business, and is centered around 3 pillars: green lifecycle management, collaboration and computing, and procurement. Furthermore, our Belgium location is presenting its candidature for LUCIE Level 2 certification in 2023.
Planned commitments and actions
- Raise awareness on Sustainable IT (e.g. information workshop, MOOC, dissemination of good practice guides)
- Organise a Digital Cleanup Day
- Training in Sustainable IT (e.g. attending a training course lasting several days)
- Communicate to its stakeholders on the actions taken
- Encourage diversity among my service providers, particularly in relation to disability issues
- Measure the impact of its digital services (e.g. frequency of use or energy consumption) using a multi-criteria and global approach to the entire service (equipment, servers, networks, etc.)
- Facilitate the proper semantic understanding of its digital services in a clear and educational language
- Participate in or encourage the co-construction/experimentation of Tech4Good
Actions started
- Raise awareness on Sustainable IT (e.g. information workshop, MOOC, dissemination of good practice guides)
- Enter a Sustainable IT labelling initiative
- Organise a Digital Cleanup Day
- Establish a Sustainable IT Working Group within the organisation
- Communicate to its stakeholders on the actions taken
- Implementing data governance of your organisation and GDPR compliance or by following the principles of the GDPR in compliance with locally applicable data protection rules locally applicable data protection rules for other countries
- Deployment of a security plan for its digital environments (antivirus, VPN, supplier audits, permanent monitoring)
- Evaluate the robustness of its infrastructures (regular tests) and prioritise European infrastructures
- Manage my fleet with an inventory by category
- Measure the lifespan of my equipment by type
- Favour the purchase of sustainable equipment (reparability and durability criteria)
- Engage with actors in the reuse sector and/or the social and solidarity economy in the management of the end-of-life of my equipment
- Integrate environmental requirements in my calls for tender and establish a dialogue and measurement elements over the duration of the service with my suppliers
- Ensuring that its suppliers and service providers comply with their GDPR requirements or follow the principles of the GDPR in compliance with locally applicable data protection rules for other countries, environmental, social and diversity
- Use start-ups, associations and sustainable innovation projects to meet my needs for products and services, and participate in the structuring and improvement of these sustainable offers and services
- Measure the energy consumption and impact of my Information System (multi-criteria analysis)
- Avoid unnecessary energy consumption e.g. by switching off at night, weekends and holidays
- Favouring low-impact energy sources
- Plan the archiving and cleaning of data with its teams to reduce their environmental footprint
- Ensure the development of useful and efficient digital services
- Reduce the environmental impact of its services: weight of images, videos, plugins, by favouring simpler or less energy-consuming solutions
- Ensure diversity in the recruitment of IS teams (initial and continuing training, diversity of training, origins, disability status)
- Encourage gender diversity in the digital field at all levels
- Promote work-life balance by, for example, respecting the right to disconnect and arranging for teleworking measures
- Making anonymised data available to enable the development of innovative services that can benefit users and citizens
- Favour the use of local and European tools in order to encourage the consolidation of players who respect the sovereignty of European data