Planet
Environmental Sustainability
We understand our responsibility to help protect the environment and as a result, seek to minimize our environmental impact throughout our operating cycle. In our manufacturing and operations, we work to optimize energy and resource usage to ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions and waste. Over the last several years for example, we implemented a tri-generation system in our plant in Mirandola to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, we established a cap on our vehicles’ carbon emissions at 130 g/km, we installed efficient lighting in locations around the globe, we replaced obsolete equipment with more efficient units, and we implemented and activated a carbon abatement system in Mirandola to reduce the emissions of volatile substances.
We encourage sites and employees on the local level to consider and implement environmentally friendly initiatives, resulting for example, in the following initiatives in 2021: the elimination of plastic straws in January in Houston, entry into an electricity contract in Germany that requires 100% clean energy sources, the installation of Electric Vehicle charging stations in Houston and Germany, and the Scrigno Project in Mirandola, Italy. Specifically in an effort to optimize the manufacturing process, the team designed and implemented a mobile ISO 6 environment – the scrigno, or "box of valuables" in Italian – to transport components directly from one cleanroom to the other, without waste and in an environmentally friendly way. The team’s initiative resulted in a reduction of packing time and movement, a projected generation of $150,000/year in savings, a shorter logistics chain, lower inventory and a reduction in consumption of 200,000 plastic bags/year and 3,000 cartons/year.
In 2022, we were pleased to choose a Net Zero LEED Gold Certification building as our new Milan office. In addition, we committed to contactless digital business cards internally in an effort to move away from printed business cards.
Greenhouse Gas Report
In our 2021 UK Annual Report (which was published in 2022), we reported on our direct and indirect emissions as follows:
- Scope 1 (direct emissions): Activities owned by our organization that release emissions straight into the atmosphere, for example the combustion of fuels in company-owned equipment and fugitive emissions.
- Scope 2 (indirect emissions): Emissions released into the atmosphere associated with our consumption of purchased electricity, heat and steam at our sites.
- Scope 3 (other indirect emissions): Emissions related to business travel vehicle usage for which we reimburse fuel costs. In previous reports, this data was reported within Scope 2 and has been removed. LivaNova is only reporting fuel usage related to business travel within Scope 3 - we feel it is appropriate to continue to report on these emissions given that they were previously reported.
Our reporting focuses on the areas of largest environmental impact, including manufacturing sites, warehouses, research and development (R&D) sites, and offices. Smaller locations representing less than 2% of our overall emissions are not included.
Methodology and Approach
In reporting the emissions data as shown in the table, LivaNova uses the operational control approach, covering the reporting period from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, in line with our financial year.
Location-based emissions are calculated in compliance with the World Resource Institute (WRI) Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (GHG Protocol Corporate Standard) and have been calculated using carbon conversion factors published by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). We have applied the emission factors most relevant to the source data, including DEFRA for UK locations, U.S. Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for U.S. locations and conversion factors from the IEA for all the remaining locations. The emission factors for gas, oil, steam and fugitive emissions are from DEFRA.
GHG emissions from vehicles operated by LivaNova are calculated from fuel expenses and mileage. Where this data was not available, estimates have been used.
Changes in emissions
We evaluated Scopes 1 and 2 from our operations and Scope 3 emissions representing fuel used in vehicle business travel, estimating employee reimbursement data and reported leased vehicle mileage. As a result of our focus on energy efficiency measures, but in large part, also as a consequence of the pandemic, our overall emissions experienced a reduction of 0.23% when compared to the previous year. The CO2e per £m sales revenue numbers decreased 16% from 2020 to 2021, while sales revenues increased 18%.
| 2021 | 2020 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) | |||
| Direct emissions (Scope 1) | 12,189.7 | 11,730.2 | |
| Energy indirect emissions (Scope 2) | 8,714.9 | 9,304.0 | |
| Total | 24,486.3 | 24,541.2 | |
| Underlying energy use for GHG calculations (GWh) | |||
| Scope 1 | 67.45 | 63.32 | |
| Scope 2 | 20.57 | 19.57 | |
| Scope 3 | 14.56 | 14.11 | |
| Total | 102.58 | 97.00 | |
| Intensity racios | |||
| CO2e per $m sales revenue | 24.5 | 29.0 | |
| Co2e per full time employee | 8.2 | 7.7 |
Other Sustainability Focus Areas
People
Our employees are crucial in our mission to provide hope and life-changing innovation to our patients and their families.
Products
Quality and safety are key to developing innovative products that work in partnership with and improve life.