Sanofi strives to ensure environmental compliance

The company produces high-quality pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and health supplements that meet the strictest quality standards for both the domestic and export markets.

Sanofi’s manufacturing site in Vietnam had an initial investment of $75 million, and has achieved TGA-GMP certification (Australia) and MFDS (South Korea). Its manufacturing lines use fully automated Omron robots, along with a product development centre, one of five development centres of the Sanofi CHC globally and this is also Sanofi unique development centre in Southeast Asia.

“Sanofi cares about the planet as we understand health and the environment are closely linked. Sanofi has invested in the rice husk boiler project to replace the diesel boiler to realise the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2025, as well as contributing to realising Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's commitment at COP26 to turn Vietnam into a nation of zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said a representative of Sanofi Vietnam. “The idea of the project is leveraging the elimination of rice husk waste in Vietnam. While rice husk is a plentiful and widely available renewable fuel, it is underutilised in Vietnam compared to its true potential in a clean biomass project such as the RING (Rice Is the New Green) project. Some European enterprises in Vietnam are currently using rice husks to replace fossil fuels.”

According to Sanofi, with the support from the German Development Agency (GIZ), the project team started developing a detailed plan in September 2021, and selected a fluidised bed technology boiler that complied with European Directive 2014/34/EU on fire and explosion protection.

It has also performed an environmental impact assessment for the entire process and proposed appropriate technical solutions to prevent the leakage of rice husk and ash into the environment while ensuring that air emissions, waste management are compliance, industrial waste compared to national technical regulations.

“The project adheres to high operational and environmental requirements,” the representative confirmed.

Global Sanofi Consumer Healthcare’s (CHC) carbon neutral roadmap by 2025 is to improve energy efficiency to achieve 5 per cent a year reduction, reduce emission by execution of decarbonization action plans with solar projects and other energy projects in many countries, improvewaste management towards more circularity, ensure efficient responsible and sustainable use of water, preserve biodiversity, improve the environmental profile of our products and embed sustainability criteria at all stages of the product life cycle, and reduce Scope 3 CO₂ emission.

Sanofi Vietnam has successfully implemented employee initiatives on energy saving and waste reduction to support Sanofi Global's sustainability ambitions. For instance, waste reduction has saved the company 16 tonnes of single use plastics per year since 2020, more than 500 tonnes of paper waste by re-using cardboard and optimising packaging materials.

Elsewhere, an energy saving programme has brought it more than 100Mwh/ year saving and improvement on energy efficiency through a project called CO₂ reduced energy consumption by 10 per cent in 2023 versus the year before.

Sanofi Vietnam is working with potential renewable electricity generating companies to procure renewable electricity for its factory through the government's recently issued Direct Power Purchase Agreement policy. The company is keen on establishing rooftop solar power, and is hoping for legislative guidance towards this goal.

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Self-care unlocks potential of fast-moving consumer healthcare in Vietnam The wave of self-care in Vietnam allows foreign pharmaceutical companies to focus on fast-moving consumer healthcare (FMCH) to complement the current system.

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