Merck is engaged in many initiatives worldwide to improve energy use and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from our operations.

Facility Design

Because the vast majority of Merck's GHG emissions are the result of energy use, we factor the potential for future emissions into capital expenditure planning, requiring all new facilities to comply with our Energy Design Guide and Energy Conservation Planner. When we purchase new facilities we evaluate them for energy efficiency and implement our best practices as part of their integration into Merck.

We have also adopted a corporate-wide, global commitment to build all new laboratories and offices to achieve LEED^® Silver Certificaion, or its equivalent. We achieved LEED certification for an existing building in 2008 and have designed and built our new administration building in Durham, North Carolina, to this standard.

Renewable Energy Projects

Since 2008, Merck has installed a total of 6.6 megawatt of photovoltaic energy arrays at our facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the U.S., and in Pavia, Italy. Together, they will eliminate more than 5,000 tons of CO₂ emissions annually.

At our Cramlington, United Kingdom, manufacturing facility, we recently installed two 2 MW wind turbines to provide a significant portion of the energy demand for the facility.

Partnerships

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star: This partnership provides a broad energy management strategy that serves as a useful framework for measuring our current energy performance, setting goals, tracking savings and rewarding improvements. In 2010, EPA again recognized Merck with a Sustaining Partner Award. This is the sixth consecutive year we have been recognized by Energy Star for excellence in energy management. For more information on our awards click here.

U.S. EPA Climate Leaders: Prior to the discontinuation of Climate Leaders in late 2010, the program was an EPA industry-government partnership. Member companies developed comprehensive climate change strategies, completed a corporate-wide inventory of their GHG emissions, and committed to reducing their impact on the global environment. Companies reported progress to Climate Leaders for review, which provided assurance that a well-implemented GHG data collection and management system was in place to track progress toward our GHG reduction goal. In 2010, Climate Leaders recognized Merck for achieving a 16 percent reduction in GHG emissions from the 2009 baseline.

Business Roundtable Climate RESOLVE: (Responsible Environmental Steps, Opportunities to Lead by Voluntary Efforts): The Climate RESOLVE initiative seeks to have every company in every sector of the economy undertake voluntary actions to control GHG emissions and improve the GHG intensity of the U.S. economy.

Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP): The CDP is an investors-backed group that annually requests emissions data from listed companies around the world. Merck has reported its GHG emissions since 2005 to the Carbon Disclosure Project and participates in workshops and seminars sponsored by the CDP.