Sustainable By Design Takeda's Bold Blueprint for Sustainable Success

To cite one example, the early design of a new drug might call for the use of organic solvents during the manufacturing process, as is common in the pharmaceutical industry. Organic solvents, though, can contaminate local water supplies and produce ground-level ozone—a pollutant that at high concentrations can affect human, animal, and plant health. Recently, one of our scientists found a way to apply green chemistry principles to our processes and reduce the use of organic solvents by 93%, waste by 78% and water use by 46% while increasing the overall yield from 35% to 56%. With results like these, we don’t need to balance the needs of our patients against the needs of the planet; they can be one and the same thing.   

Water is a precious global resource, and 20% of our manufacturing sites are in areas with high to extremely high water risk. We take our use of water very seriously and work ceaselessly to reduce our intake and increase the recycling of the water we do use. Good ideas can come from anywhere, so we have programs that empower employees to make suggestions. One employee in our Los Angeles manufacturing site had an idea for optimizing the way we clean our manufacturing equipment, which cut the plant’s water usage by two million gallons per year. Additional employee suggestions have now lowered the site’s water usage by a total of six million gallons per year, and we continue to work every day to find innovative ways to reduce our water usage.  

Our supply chain also leaves a carbon footprint: materials need to be delivered, drugs need to be manufactured, and finished products need to be sent to patients around the world. To reduce our carbon emissions, in 2022 we reduced the number of our distribution centers (saving enough energy to power over 3,000 houses for a year), made better use of our truck fleet to reduce the total number of trucks on the road (cutting our emissions by 20,000 tons of CO2), and shifted more of our freight from air to sea (cutting another 42,000 tons of emissions). We are simultaneously working with our partners and suppliers to reduce their emissions as well. 

We apply the same values to the construction of our buildings worldwide. Our Singen manufacturing site in Germany features heat recovery, LED lighting, emission-free cooling systems, triple-glazed windows, and solar panels, and soon will feature a facility to generate energy from biomass. Our manufacturing support building in Singapore features windows treated with a thermoplastic polymer that blocks UV and infrared but allows visible light to pass through, plus an AI-controlled climate system. Working at Takeda means dealing with cutting-edge science, both in the products we produce and the buildings where we work.  

We know that healthy people depend on a healthy world. In every part of the business, and within every step along the way from idea to finished product, we are committed to finding new and better ways to care for this planet that we all call home. For Angelica Nava-Gutierrez, the head of Environment, Health, and Safety at our Los Angeles Manufacturing Site, this commitment is very personal. As she puts it: 

“My daughter is five and she asks a ton of questions. She's so curious about recycling and what we’re doing to protect the planet. There's always something that I can tell her about what we're doing to protect the planet and to make it safe for future generations. It's awesome to be able to share with her everything that we do to leave this place better than how we have it now.” 

Interested in joining an organization that’s making real progress in sustainability? Explore open roles and join us on our mission of life- and planet-changing impact.