Protecting the Environment
At Dentsply Sirona, we are committed to minimizing and mitigating the short- and long-term environmental impact of our global business operations. This includes assessing our own operations and working with suppliers to ensure that we are contributing to positive change across the sector.
Measuring Emissions and Emissions Reduction
Reducing emissions is key to our environmental strategy and we understand the importance of transitioning to a low carbon economy. We set intermediate targets to reduce the intensity of our cope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by at least 15% by 2025, and we are pleased to report that we have already met this goal. We are working to develop and report our Scope 3 GHG emissions by valuating the carbon impact from our entire value chain, which includes suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.
We are continuing to work with Schneider Resource Advisor as our global energy management partner and have implemented Green Diamond as our environmental data management platform. These partnerships provide insight into our energy use by location and respective cost, which allows us to effectively manage our energy consumption and concurrently reduce GHG emissions and operating cost. This data also gives us the ability to improve our responsiveness to changing conditions and identify opportunities to consider alternative energy sources.
In 2021, our total Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions intensity (metric tonnes CO2/US$M Net Sales) decreased by 17% from the 2019 baseline measurement, representing an absolute decrease of 5,463 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emitted. However, emissions on an absolute basis increased in 2021 because we added three new sites to our data set. In additional overall site emissions also decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, impacting operations across all our sites. Therefore, we are using the 2019 baseline as a more meaningful comparative for business-as-usual operations.
The sprawling, 63,200-square-foot Dentsply Sirona facility that manufactures and distributes endodontic products in Johnson City, Tennessee, has an impressive track record when it comes to going green. Since 2015, the facility, which currently has 215 employees, has been on a mission to recycle and reuse excess materials like electronics, glass, metal, paper, cardboard, as well as save water and electricity.
“We’ve always been conscientious of the environment, both internally and externally, but we noticed that we still had so much excess trash,” said Marcie Littleton, Technical Resource/Environmental Health and Safety Manager at the Johnson City site. “We saw an opportunity to create a cleaner and safer environment for both our employees and our community.”
In going green, they considered all aspects related to the operation in Johnson City and all activities used in collecting, treating, handling, and disposing of hazardous and non-hazardous materials, and recycling of materials.
“We just didn’t know how much power and water we were using or the impact we were having on our neighborhood and community,” she said. “This helped us to realize that it’s the right thing to do. We encourage everyone to practice recycling every day.”
Since going green, the site no longer purchases plastic cups or straws, and even had the glass bottles removed from their vending machines.
Johnson City also received ISO 14001 environmental management system certification in 2016, which means that every year, the site must provide evidence that it remains committed to its environmental management system and respective goals to maintain the certification. “It’s a great accomplishment that we take pride in,” said Littleton. “We are proud to be champions of this initiative for Dentsply Sirona and to set a good example for our business partners and our community.”
Other Healthy Planet Case Studies
2022 Sustainability Report
