Our Commitments to Water Stewardship
As part of Sanofi’s Planet Care program, and commitment to limiting our impact on Nature, our strategy for water stewardship is based on:
- A Global reduction of 15% of our freshwater withdrawals between 2019 (baseline year) and 2030, despite the ongoing development of our industrial capacities;
- Acknowledging that water challenges are specific to each watershed and need to be addressed at local level, we are implementing water management plan (WMP) supplemented by context-based targets on all our manufacturing sites by 2030.
- A focus on priority sites, presenting higher water-related risks, such as increased water scarcity, and for which Sanofi will implement water management plans (WMP) by 2025;
- The continuous assessment of water-related risks; and
- Improved knowledge of the water footprint of our products.
At the global level, we define our target for reducing water withdrawal using 2 primary inputs; aggregating our local targets which are set based on a careful evaluation of the local context and evaluating the potential impact of strategic investment plans.
As a public engagement Sanofi signed the pledge to the CEO Water Mandate and is a member of the Alliance for Water Stewardship. Our water roadmap is inspired by their guidelines and standards to ensure sustainable and responsible use of water.
The Different Uses of Water
Water is used in Sanofi’s operations for both domestic needs (like irrigation, drinking water, and sanitation) and industrial applications usage including drug synthesis, pharmaceutical formulation, heat transfer systems and cleaning applications. Sanofi relies exclusively on freshwater, with approximately 77% of its total withdrawals supplied by third-parties (municipal or industrial), 9% that are directly abstracted from surface waters (lakes and rivers) and 14% from groundwater.
Sanofi internally promotes water recycling and reuse practices to reduce its water footprint, such as harvesting rainwater and reusing water in cooling systems and for irrigation. As of 2024, at least 23 sites are engaged in water recycling practices. Ambitious programs are underway in Canada, France, Belgium, and Italy to further increase our wastewater recycling capacities.
Sanofi’s Water Risk Assessment Program
Sanofi’s Water Risks Assessment Program (WRAP) provides a comprehensive overview of risks (of which, water stress) potentially impacting our direct operations. Based on the 2020 campaign, 5 priority sites located in Algeria, India, Mexico (two), and China are identified. As per Company commitment, each site must prepare a specific action plan including:
- Internal or external audits on water use, comprised of a detailed water balance and a review of the performance of major water systems;
- The identification of opportunities to improve water efficiency considering recycling solutions, the modernization of key equipment, revision of operational procedures and the improvement of water monitoring;
- The definition of context-based water targets to better understand local water challenges so relevant actions are implemented.
Sanofi works closely with its suppliers to address water security across its value chain, conducting risk assessments amongst key suppliers, sharing good practices in water management, and performing regular HSE audits, including on water and wastewater management.
Responsible Management of Wastewater
Details of Sanofi’s management of emissions to water, including pharmaceuticals in the environment considerations, can be found in the Pharmaceuticals in the Environment factsheet.
Our Performance in 2024
- Total amount of water withdrawals: 10.3 millions of m3.
- 22% reduction of our global water withdrawals (vs. 2019 baseline)1.
- 42% reduction of water withdrawals by priority sites (vs. 2019 baseline).
- Water demand by these priority sites on water risks accounts for 3% of our total withdrawals and is continuously decreasing with a 23% reduction over the past year, thanks to local water efficiency initiatives and the transfer of water intensive activities to sites less exposed to water stress.
- Our emissions of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) released by our sites have decreased by approximately 11% (baseline 2019).
References
- Our water withdrawal reduction objective of 15% was achieved ahead of the schedule, thanks to the implementation of water-saving solutions (start-up of a water recycling plant at our production facility in Belgium, and improvements to our research and production platform in the Ile-de-France region), which delivered better-than-projected outcomes. Sanofi will continue to improve the efficiency of our processes, however, as our targets are based on absolute volumes, projected business growth and industrial development may limit further improvement.