Baxter reports encouraging progress in latest sustainability report

Baxter has published its 15th annual sustainability report, which highlights the success it has achieved in improving its environmental and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance.

During 2013, the company has been able to bring down its plastics waste by nine percent per unit of production from 2011 levels at 20 facilities, while initiating a community water project with a local non-governmental organisation near the company's Cuernavaca facility in Mexico.

It has also optimised product transport through technology to help planners maximise the amount of weight per truckload, while partnering with the Vinyl Council of Australia on efforts to recycle PVC medical products.

These initiatives – as well as the work it has done to improve the environmental performance of its haemodialysis devices –  led to it being included in Corporate Responsibility magazine's 100 Best Corporate Citizens list for the 13th year.

Robert Parkinson, Baxter's chairman and chief executive officer, said: "This includes not only the scientific innovations that define our service to patients and caretakers; it also encompasses new ways of doing business that advance our goals as a publicly traded company and global corporate citizen."

The company has won a number of safety awards in recent months for key business sites in China, the UK and Brazil, further underlining its commitment to best practice.