Canada's Greenest Employers (2025) - Flipbook - Page 66
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CANADA'S GREENEST EMPLOYERS (2025)
Sanofi Canada is investing in care for the planet
T
he commitment to
sustainability by
Sanofi Canada has
been hard to miss for
anyone who’s visited
the company’s 54-acre pharmaceutical research and manufacturing
site in Toronto over the past
couple of years.
“We’re on track to deliver $170
million in investments at our
Toronto campus to directly impact
and minimize our environmental
footprint,” says Kate Winchester,
the company’s head of manufacturing and supply.
I’m really glad to work at a
company that promotes an
environmentally conscious
mindset but also gives the
opportunity for employees
to lead those initiatives.
campus’s power plant and other
infrastructure that should reduce
the carbon emissions of the
growing campus by 30 per cent.
“While increasing our long-term
demand, we are decreasing our
emissions,” says Elena Savic,
Energy Project lead.
These two initiatives dovetail
with the multinational pharma
company’s Planet Care program,
which commits to five green goals:
fighting climate change, limiting
its environmental footprint,
minimizing the environmental
impact of its products and
packaging, mobilizing people for
sustainability and engaging
suppliers and partners to work
towards sustainability.
Sanofi Canada’s green efforts go
beyond one-time capital projects,
though. It takes ongoing steps to
maintain environmental
certifications relevant in its
industry: ISO 14001 and ISO
50001. Its waste management
protocol, which mandates the use
of compostable food containers
and cutlery in the cafeteria among
other things, meant that just 0.73
per cent of all solid waste
generated on-site in 2024 ended
up in a landfill — 85 per cent was
either reused, recycled or
recovered.
And Sanofi solicits new ideas
from employees. It even holds an
annual Planet Care Challenge
offering rewards to workers with
the best, most practicable
suggestions. Employee-led
initiatives that have been
implemented include free electric
vehicle charging in the staff
parking lots and an eco-friendly
garden that produces vegetables
and herbs.
Employees also spearhead an
annual cleanup of an adjacent
ravine. Since 2018, the company
has sponsored two beehives in the
area dubbed “Plan Bee”;
employees can buy jars of the
honey produced in the cafeteria.
“We’re taking ideas from
employees because they’re there
— they’re on the shop floor,
they’re doing their jobs and we
appreciate their suggestions,”
Savic says. “I’m really glad to work
at a company that promotes an
environmentally-conscious
— Elena Savic
Energy Project Lead
Last year, Sanofi completed
construction and started up a
wastewater treatment and re-use
plant that cut its municipal water
draw by 20 per cent despite
expanded operations. The facility
reuses wastewater from throughout the site in its power plant
boilers.
“This is a facility that’s really
state of the art in terms of design,”
Winchester says. “This plant is
being used as an example of best
practices with the Sanofi network
around the world.”
This year, the company aims to
finish the Energy Project, a
comprehensive update of the
Employees at Sanofi Canada tour the newly-built wastewater treatment and reuse facility.
