Biodiversity and water

Roche relies on resilient and healthy ecosystems to sustainably produce our medicines and diagnostic solutions. Nature provides many of the raw materials needed to make our products and their packaging. A clean and reliable water supply is essential for manufacturing, cooling and cleaning processes, and helps reduce product contamination risks. To deliver on our purpose of doing now what patients need next, we must protect nature and its resources.

Water is a precious resource — one that we share with our community. Water-related issues, including shortages and contamination, impact us all. Effective water stewardship is vital for our operations, as well as the health of our patients, employees, local communities and the environment.

Here, we set out our approach to water stewardship, or read more in Roche’s

Roche acknowledges the growing demand for freshwater and our responsibility to consume it wisely. We assess water conditions at each of our sites and implement procedures to ensure efficient water usage. We constantly review our manufacturing processes to minimise water consumption and optimise our equipment to use less water. Where possible, we reuse and recycle water multiple times – for example, reusing cleaning water the next time we clean, as long as it is safe to do so.

Over half of the water we use is for non-consumptive purposes like cooling and heating and can be discharged after use, uncontaminated and without treatment. We maintain and upgrade our cooling systems to maximise water efficiency, and improve heat recovery systems to reduce the need for cooling water altogether. Following use, we check water quality, discharging it without treatment if it meets the required standard.

To reinforce our commitment to efficient water use, we design all water stewardship programmes at Roche sites in water-stressed areas according to internationally recognised standards. Certification will verify our actions and maintain and improve local availability of water for the benefit of our business and the health of our community.

Manufacturing pharmaceuticals and diagnostic solutions requires water, as an ingredient in our products and to ensure equipment is clean and contamination free. We treat all wastewater used in production in line with all relevant regulations and pretreatment standards. Before discharge, we use total organic carbon (TOC) analysis to assess purity and ensure treated wastewater can be safely returned to nature.

Our processes are designed to remove contaminants, including toxic and poorly biodegradable substances, heavy metals and active pharmaceutical ingredients, including those that might contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In some cases, we use ozone to remove non- or poorly degradable contaminants. Roche’s heavy metal emissions remain very low and consist mainly of zinc, copper and chromium washed from piping by wastewater. We do not discharge any toxicologically significant metals, like cadmium or mercury, into wastewater.

Our water treatment specialists continually seek to improve our processes and further lessen contamination, ensuring water quality, the environment and human health are not compromised.

Concern about the health of nature is rising – across and beyond the healthcare industry. Protecting natural ecosystems is vital for life, for producing our medicines and for improving health outcomes globally.

The pivotal 2022 UN Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) aims to reverse global biodiversity loss and achieve full recovery of nature by 2050. Businesses have a critical role to play in making this happen.

Here, we set out our approach to biodiversity, or read more in Roche’s

Roche relies on nature for the raw materials we use and recognises the potential negative impact on biodiversity from overexploitation of natural resources. We support the principles of resource stewardship defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and GBF and aim to apply them across our operations.

We aim to source all natural commodities from credible certified sources. We avoid the use of non-commodity natural resource materials in our products and in our discovery and development activities. If we do discover or develop a commercial product derived from natural plant, microbial or animal genetic materials, we will be guided by the CBD goals and principles in our use of those resources.

Through our involvement in global initiatives such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, IMI PREMIER and the AMR Industry Alliance, we aim to drive greater impact beyond our business. These organisations are spearheading development of new biodiversity-related policies, including a roadmap for a nature-positive pharmaceutical sector.