Article

Steps taken by Dr. Reddy's Laboratories in controlling the environmental risks and safety management in the manufacturing of APIs

Dr. Reddy's approach to Environmental Management:

We realize that addressing Environmental challenges is the need of the hour. We are conscious of our ecological footprint and are committed to making our business sustainable. We do this by evaluating our operation's environmental impact, implementing eco-friendly technologies, and investing in impact mitigation measures. Our key focus areas are:

Dr. Reddy’s initiated the journey of voluntary disclosures on social and environmental issues in the year 2004, covering aspects of environment, safety, social, product responsibility, transparency, and operational excellence. In addition, Dr. Reddy’s internally reviews material issues in the business environment and continuously invests in cleaner technologies and capability improvements for better environmental management across our operations.

Since 2009, we have prioritized integrating environmental risk management guidelines into our long-term business strategy and activities, along with dedicated budgets for our environmental initiatives. In addition, we undertake environmental initiatives and capacity-building programs, both within our organization and as part of our community development programs.

Alignment with global sustainability frameworks:

In FY2020, Dr. Reddy’s conducted a dedicated climate risk study as per the Task Force on Climate- related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and emerged as the first Indian pharma API manufacturing company to commit to the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) for corporate climate action. In sum, we have drawn upon these frameworks to implement management systems and establish targets to strengthen our sustainability impact across our business.

Since 2010, Dr. Reddy’s has been committed to the UN Global Compact corporate responsibility initiative and its principles in human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption. In addition, to that, we have mapped our new ESG goals to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals

In June 2022, we have unveiled our bold ESG goals to investors and other stakeholders. Our new ESG goals are covered under three thematic areas such as Environment, Social & Governance.

Our ESG goals:

Our Initiatives in environment, health, safety, and sustainability:

Success stories – Environment health and safety risk management:

programs and part of many environment protection success stories. Some of them include:

Renewable Power:

In FY 2022 - 26% of our power consumed is through renewables, and we have established infrastructure outside the fence, Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), and rooftop solar installations.

Water Management:

Increased water consumption and constrained water supply are among the most critical global risks in pharma API manufacturing. To mitigate water security risk, Dr. Reddy’s continues to undertake water conservation initiatives in line with the target to achieve water positivity by 2025. In FY 2022, we have achieved 78% of water neutrality.

Wastewater Management / Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD): All our API Manufacturing facilities in India are equipped with ZLD which ensures 100% of treatment of wastewater and recycling.

With these initiatives, Dr. Reddy’s has observed an 28.45 % reduction in water intensity between FY2019 and FY2022.

Hazardous and non-hazardous waste management

With all our API facilities achieving zero hazardous waste to landfill in FY2020, to ensure the waste is being disposed responsibly, 99% of our global hazardous waste was co-processed and recycled.

Green Chemistry 

We foresee an economy where all chemicals, materials and products are safe and sustainable in their creation, use, transport, disposal, recycling, and reuse. We contribute to accelerate the development and commercialisation of innovative green and sustainable chemistry solutions in response to market, science, and our environmental commitment.

Our efforts to drive large scale commercial adoption of safer, sustainable, and high performing chemical solutions focuses on specific functions, chemicals or classes identified by our team as priorities for innovation and substitution. In setting priorities for projects, we seek continuous inputs from scientists, process engineers and technical experts to develop our priorities for innovation and commercialisation. Through green chemistry, our focus is to maximise resource efficiencies, eliminate and minimise hazards and pollution and design systems holistically using design thinking.

Our green chemistry council includes multi-stakeholders that drive the commercial adoption of green chemistry, catalysing and guiding actions across all functions including supply chain.

Using artificial intelligence and machine-learning based Route of Synthesis (ROS) selection helps us in limiting the number of stages and eliminating multi-step synthesis, and leads to high yield conversion, better solvent recovery, and more efficient impurity synthesis. Morph screening virtualisation (few targeted robot-assisted experiments versus mass scale physical trials) helps reduce cost- and time-consuming lab trials. The particle size of pharmaceutical constituents has a substantial impact on the final product’s effectiveness, durability, and safety. Using imaging systems during the manufacturing of drug formulations instead of in situ wet methods has helped us solve particle size challenges with the employed ingredients.

We also focus on flow chemistry and continuous processing to enable sustainable (cleaner, greener, efficient, and safe) synthesis of APIs. Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences (DRILS), set up on a public-private partnership model by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, the Government of Telangana, and the University of Hyderabad, focuses on original research and advancement of relevant skills, with an emphasis on solution-oriented interdisciplinary research for solving unmet needs and for process innovation.