Our commitment to a sustainable future
Sustainability is a core belief of Chiesi Limited. In 2019, Chiesi announced its commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2035 as well as reducing the carbon footprint of our activity and portfolio.
In addition, Chiesi is a certified B Corp®, a business that strives to meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.1 B Corp® organisations are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, community, and the environment.2
Chiesi is committed to helping patients make their lives better and to this end, it continuously strives to innovate and improve its products, taking both clinical and sustainability factors into full consideration.
Take AIR scheme
As part of our ongoing commitment towards a sustainable future, Chiesi launched the Leicestershire Take AIR (Take Action for Inhaler Recycling) scheme in January 2021, to enable inhaler users to recycle their empty, unwanted or out of date inhalers safely and effectively through the post. Any inhaler, brand and type, is accepted. The pre-paid, readily addressed envelopes are provided by community pharmacies within the area.
The scheme is currently being piloted in the Leicestershire area for 12 months. This is a Chiesi Limited scheme supported by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Leicestershire and Rutland Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC).
The inhalers will be sent through the Royal Mail postal system directly to the waste disposal company, Grundon Waste Management, for the responsible recycling of the components of pressurised metered dose inhalers and environmentally appropriate disposal of non-recyclable inhalers.
Through the scheme, the aluminium canisters can be crushed, recycled and reused. The plastic components will also be recycled and put back into the plastic supply chain. Any remaining propellant gas will be extracted and reused in items such as fridges and air conditioning units. Non-recyclable materials will be converted into energy through a process called energy-from-waste by high temperature incineration.
The results from the pilot will be evaluated including quantitative and qualitative analysis, lessons learnt and recommendations for potential upscale through system-wide collaboration. This enables the findings to be shared with relevant stakeholders, including the NHS, pharmaceutical industry, and relevant government and independent scrutiny bodies, to support the development of a future sustainable recovery and recycling process for inhalers.
Any enquiries in relation to the scheme please email Takeair.uk@chiesi.com.
Take AIR supporting materials can be found by clicking on the links below:
Reference
1 Certified B Corporation. “B Corp Directory: Chiesi Group”. Available at: https://bcorporation.net/directory/chiesi-group. Last Accessed: January 2022.
2 Certified B Corporation. About B Corps. Available at: https://bcorporation.net/about-b-corps. Last accessed: January 2022.
UK-RES-2102345 January 2022
