Updated October 28, 2008
Amgen staff share a passion for supplying vital medicines to patients. Many bring this same passion to their environmental commitment and through outstanding individual and team efforts make Amgen a more environmentally-friendly place to work and protect the local environment.
Amgen Rhode Island Staff Help Beautify Local Wildlife Refuges
A group of Amgen Rhode Island staff members recently helped make two of the state’s most pristine nature retreats a bit more beautiful.
Fifteen staff members volunteered at two refuge sites operated by the Audubon Society of Rhode Island (ASRI). The two groups put in a hard day’s work at ASRI’s McIntosh Wildlife Refuge in Bristol and Powder Mill Ledges Wildlife Refuge in Smithfield to perform much needed maintenance and general repairs.
The Bristol volunteers worked together to tackle multiple tasks, including landscaping the walking and hiking trails, raking and sweeping, and installing a post-and-rail fence. The latter required digging holes, cutting posts and assembling parts.
The Smithfield team’s work helped to restore a butterfly habitat by assembling butterfly posts, installing bird houses and removing Sumac trees and Bittersweet. The group also undertook a large landscaping job, which included trimming overhang on trails and weeding and mulching garden areas.
“Whoa Nellie! The crew of Amgen employees was like a tornado! They trimmed the bushes and the trails, tamed the tansy, mowed and even picked up trash… all before lunchtime!” said Kim Calcagno, manager, Powder Mill Ledges Wildlife Refuge. “We really do rely on the help of volunteers, and to have a group is especially wonderful. In one day, they can accomplish what would take me weeks or months to do.”
Amgen Shifts into Green for Earth Day
Every April, staff members at sites across Amgen celebrate Earth Day and renew their commitment to the environment. The theme for Earth Day 2008 was “Shift into Green” and staff learned about strategies to protect the environment at Amgen on four fronts: green manufacturing, green campus, green laboratory and green office.
In Thousand Oaks, ATO staff attended the seventh annual Earth Day and Energy Conservation Fair where Environment, Health and Safety (EHS), Utilities and visiting vendors promoted energy efficiency and sustainability activities. Staff could recycle used personal cell phones and athletic shoes while children attending the onsite daycare facility created artwork with a recycling theme.
In Puerto Rico, staff celebrated Earth Day with a symbolic tree planting attended by the Undersecretary of the Department of Natural Resources, as well as several local high school students, AML associates and children from the onsite childcare center. Five hundred trees were given to the participants at this event. The tree planting ceremony kicked off the site’s aggressive reforestation project on the Amgen campus where approximately 1,800 trees, including native species, will be planted over the next four years.
In Colorado, a Reuse-A-Shoe program collected 75 pairs of sneakers while Cell Phones for Soldiers collected 236 phones and 189 accessories. A new sustainability page was posted on the intranet where staff could take a recycling pledge or experiment with a recycling calculator.
The annual Rhode Island Earth Day Celebration featured displays and presentations by vendors that either supply energy to the campus or are involved in the site’s recycling and re-use programs. Informative displays and presentations by Facilities & Engineering and EHS staff highlighted recent resource conservation and pollution prevention projects. Staff members learned how to be more environmentally friendly, were given reusable bags to use in lieu of plastic bags, and received potted plants for their yard or desk. An online tool allowed staff members to calculate their carbon footprint and provided tips on how to reduce carbon footprints.
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Pictured: Amgen Washington staff members take the Washington Sustainability pledge. |
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Pictured: Amgen San Francisco held a free waste recycling event. |
Washington, marked this year's Earth Day with the roll-out of a new food composting program that provided composting bins for all food scraps and paper napkins. An Amgen Washington Sustainability Pledge was available online. By choosing three or more new environmentally friendly actions to take in the coming year, staff received either a recyclable shopping bag or a compact fluorescent light bulb.
Grassroots Effort Reduces Energy Use and Waste
For the first three months of 2008, Global Regulatory Affairs & Safety (GRAAS) staff in one building at Amgen Thousand Oaks got together to reduce the amount of waste they were producing and cut down on the energy and other natural resources they were consuming. They tracked the amount of material they were recycling, monitored electricity usage for the building, and sent out electronic – rather than paper – reminders and tips to support the “GRAAS is GREEN” pilot program.
A GRAAS is GREEN team designed the initiative to increase staff awareness of simple “green” practices that can significantly impact the environment and promote energy conservation, waste reduction and recycling. Staff were encouraged to focus on green practices in the areas of energy, supplies, catering, travel and meetings.
A Utility Operations report showed that, during the three-month effort, the team was able to reduce kilowatt hour usage in their building by approximately 9 percent compared to the same period in 2007. In addition, Facility Systems reported decreases in all categories of recyclable materials that would have gone to landfill, with the exception of paper – a statistic the GRAAS is GREEN team will continue to work on improving.Amgen U.K. Staff Efforts Reduce Waste by 75 Percent
Would you be willing to give up your waste basket and carry paper, cardboard, cans and bottles to a central recycling location?
Staff at Amgen’s Uxbridge office in the United Kingdom (U.K.) have been working this way since the site opened, and last year they saved approximately 50,000 kilos of waste from going to landfills, 12 million liters of water and 670 trees.
“It’s an amazing recycling effort, the key to which is the commitment of our staff, combined with easy access to recycling facilities,” says Dan Waller, senior manager, and head of the U.K. Facilities Operations function. “We’re not the first company in the United Kingdom to do this, but in a very short space of time, we have raised our level of waste recycling to more than 75 percent – almost double the U.K. average.”
When Uxbridge opened in September 2006, MITIE was selected as the site’s facilities management company. MITIE set up the centralized recycling bins for paper, cardboard, bottles and cans and provided each staff member with a “tree-hugger,” a cardboard container that sits on the desk where staff can stow waste paper until they’re ready to take it to the recycling area.
At the beginning of 2008, Amgen’s Cambridge, U.K., site also brought in MITIE and adopted the same program, removing all individual waste bins and placing recycling stations near printers and in refreshment areas. This was a bit of a shift in behavior for Cambridge staff, but, Waller reports, they adjusted quickly and have been very supportive of the waste-reduction effort.
“We’ve brought our general non-recyclable waste down to a relatively small proportion of the total now,” says Waller, “and the next steps will be to look at ways to reduce the overall quantity of recycling that we need to do, particularly for items like paper.”
Staff Enjoy Alternative Commuting Options
In 2004, when Amgen Washington moved to a new campus in Seattle, Jan Law, senior associate, project management, Facilities Operations and Amgen Washington's Employee Transportation Administrator, realized too many staff were solo automobile commuters. As a result, Law worked to provide a range of transportation options and encouraged staff to pursue alternative transportation. Today, sixty-five percent of staff use some alternative form of transportation to get to work.
“Amgen Washington has made a commitment to helping staff find alternative methods of transportation," said Jan Law. "We have tried to incorporate as much employee input into the transportation program as possible, so that hopefully, everyone can find a commuting solution that suits their lifestyle."
The alternate transportation solutions include 25 Metro and Community Transit vanpools; a Guaranteed Ride Home program which assures that ridesharing staff will be provided with a ride home in case of emergency; an onsite car-sharing program; and a partnership with King County Metro to educate employees on carpooling and public transit options.
Commuter Challenge, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that seeks to improve regional mobility and protect and sustain the environment in the Puget Sound region, has recognized the successful program.
“Jan’s positive customer service attitude, her ability to come up with creative transportation solutions, and her work with external organizations has made Amgen Washington’s commute trip reduction program a true success,” said Sue Hansen, director, Facilities and Maintenance, Amgen Washington.Amgen Staff Member is Longtime Bike Commuter
Mike Husovich has been a bike commuter since the late '1980s’. Husovich commutes nearly 30 miles a day biking to and from his work at the Longmont campus in Colorado.
“The main reason I ride is because I'm protecting the environment, and I thoroughly, thoroughly, enjoy doing it. I think it helps my effectiveness as a leader at Amgen and at home,” said Husovich. “The endorphin flow I get from the morning bike commute along with the time on the bike being outside versus in a car stuck in traffic really helps me plan for the challenges of the day.”
Husovich, with the Company since 2002, appreciates that Amgen supports his commitment to the environment by providing bike lockers and shower facilities on site.
Said Husovich, referring to a bike event in California attended by Amgen CEO, Kevin Sharer and other executives, “I am very encouraged by our leaders’ commitment to fitness and active lifestyles. How many companies can say that their entire executive team rode 50 miles of the Pacific Coast Highway?
Substitutes for Mercury Thermometers Reduce Hazardous Waste
Farah Shamszadeh had an idea to reduce hazardous waste in Amgen Thousand Oaks. She knew that almost one quarter of HazMat incidents – events requiring clean up of hazardous material – involved broken laboratory thermometers that spilled mercury. But, she also knew of a substitute – spirit-filled thermometers that are filled with a liquid in place of mercury.
Shamszadeh and a group of dedicated volunteers developed an awareness program targeting Amgen scientists using mercury thermometers. The group estimated that approximately 1,000 pieces of equipment required the use of thermometers. To encourage the switch-over, they sponsored a three-day event where scientists could exchange mercury thermometers for new spirit-filled thermometers free of charge. The group used e-mail and a site-sponsored Earth Day event to raise awareness of the exchange program. The result? The group collected over 240 mercury thermometers.
“In hospitals they have been implementing programs to reduce mercury thermometer use for years,” continued Shamszadeh. “It’s natural that we, as a company that cares about health, should try to do the same. It’s not that hard to fix this problem.”
Amgen Staff Help Support Greenway
Bob DuBose, Amgen Washington, and Scott Patterson, Amgen Thousand Oaks, decided to turn a summer 2006 teambuilding event into a chance to enrich their staff and support the Washington environment. Nearly 40 of their staff members spent the day outdoors helping to prepare native plants for installment along the I-90 corridor as part of the Mountains to Sound Greenway project. The Mountains to Sound National Scenic Byway is a linked network of green spaces, recreational opportunities and historic towns in Washington State.
“It was fun to get out into nature and do something for the environment,” said Megan Duncan, administrative coordinator, Research and Development Informatics.
