Green is the new normal for UCB

Our patients have spoken. Planet earth has spoken. And we have listened.

UCB listened to their concerns about sustainability, and we acted. We have shifted to a sustainable and more eco-friendly design approach for our packaging.

Shifting to an eco-friendly design approach
At UCB, we know that to create value for patients – now and into the future – we must take a long-term business approach with current and future generations in mind. And this means doing our utmost to minimize our impact on the environment and protect our planet’s health. We deem this essential to achieve our broader goals of helping all patients live the lives they aspire to and working toward healthier communities in the countries where we operate.

Our approach considers the company’s overall footprint, including taking steps to reduce how our packaging impacts that. Accordingly, we shifted to a sustainable and eco-friendly design approach built around eight pillars:

1. Optimize resource utilization
2. Material chemistry
3. Responsible sourcing
4. Recyclability
5. Operational efficiencies
6. Patient adherence or persistency
7. Optimized distribution
8. Quality of design.
   

Delivering on our eco-promise
We are already delivering on our promise to give greater importance to sustainability – both in our design and in the materials we use. We have set up a Secondary Packaging & Artwork (SPA) Team with responsibility for delivering eco-friendly packaging.

They take our obligations to the planet very seriously. From concept to reality, they drive the development process in a balanced approach between innovation and creativity. The result? Pragmatic, rational and environmentally responsible packaging solutions. Their solutions reduce the induced carbon footprint, water consumption and waste production.
 
Award-winning eco-design
Our SPA Team design output has already been recognized through 7 awards. We are proud to announce that our new packaging for our asset for rheumatoid arthritis received another PHARMAPACK Packaging Award at this year’s annual PHARMAPACK exhibition.

The SPA Team drew on our eco-design approach to redesign our pre-filled syringe kit for rheumatoid arthritis that received US FDA approval ten years ago. And that packaging came top of its class to win the eco-design award in the health product category – a category assessed by a professional jury made up of experts from leading research institutes and universities, industry and the trade press.

This award-winning packaging redesign shifts the paradigm of pharmaceutical packaging, embedding innovative packaging features that focus on package size, recyclability, sustainability and waste. And this new design doesn’t just reduce the ecological footprint of the packaging; it also aims to enhance the patient experience and increase medication adherence.

Green is the new normal
For UCB, going green is now the new normal.
Going green is etched in our sutainability approach as  we aim to deliver carbon-neutral operations at UCB by 2030. With the eight pillars of our eco-design approach, we will continue to pioneer sustainable and eco-friendly packaging innovations.