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| Reaching out to our community, the Reading Partners Program in St. Louis, Mo., pairs employees with underprivileged children to enhance their reading and comprehension skills. Our investment in people, with personal rewards for those who get involved, is beyond measure. |
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| Polystyrene containers used for shipping products with wet or dry ice can take thousands of years to decompose. To promote a greener future, our Polystyrene Container Recycling Program enables the free return of any polystyrene container. We now receive approximately 10% of all shipped containers back annually. For 2009, we are looking to improve that rate of return through increased communication. |
Give back to our communities
Innovation affects more than our financial performance. It impacts the lives of people – employees, friends and neighbors. Like our mission to accelerate our customers’ success, we strive to improve the quality of life for the people we are in contact with each and every day. We do this by advancing science education, making donations to worthy causes and giving our time and energy to help those in need of assistance.
Sigma-Aldrich and its employees continued to give generously to our communities in 2008. Through our Team Sigma-Aldrich program, personal employee contributions reached nearly $60,000 and topped 4,000 volunteer hours. In addition, the Company donated approximately $8 million in products and cash. Overall, more than 1,300 people participated in 18 events in the communities where we live and work.
Support a healthy environment
In 2008 we progressed our global citizenship initiatives with:
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY With more than 115 facilities worldwide, we continue collecting data to evaluate energy use and spending, and to calculate our carbon footprint on a global, regional and site-specific basis. We have the foundation to evaluate energy consumption and employ natural resource conservation projects and emissions reductions projects at select locations. We are working to prepare Sigma-Aldrich for a more carbon-constrained world, and to help us comply with current and proposed regulations and reporting requirements.
GREEN CHEMISTRY AND RECYCLING We completed our first-ever worldwide green chemistry and recycling reconnaissance. Eager to learn from each other, our Worldwide Sustainable Development Committee set out to create a list of innovative chemical process improvements so that our global facilities can leverage process improvements. In addition, recycling efforts are tracked and shared to help inspire and implement reduction, reuse and recycling across all facilities.
EXTERNAL REPORTING We published our inaugural Global Citizenship Report in 2008 on the Sigma-Aldrich website. This report communicates our progress against our worldwide energy tracking initiatives and records our carbon footprint for select facilities. We share information on waste reduction and material reuse projects in many parts of the globe, and highlight our employee volunteerism as one way to help us engage the communities where we work and live.
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