Our living environment is worldwide under great pressure. Planet earth is becoming increasingly crowded. As her inhabitants we are creating more pollution than she can handle. This is a great challenge, which we face as humanity this century.
As a healthcare company, we play an important role in society. If we want to be the healthcare partner of choice, we also need to be committed to create healthy conditions for people, their environment and society. After all, we all depend on this. A healthy life begins with a healthy environment.
This is why, we work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat global warming. We are also reducing the amount of waste that our organisation produces. By making our own logistics processes more sustainable we also have an impact on the supply chain of our customers such as pharmacies and healthcare institutions.
Our aim is to have a CO2 neutral operation in both Brocacef and BENU by 2030.
Thanks to the dedication and effort of our employees, we can deliver valuable products and services. It is therefore important to ensure the vitality of employees. They can work on this by making use of a vitality platform. In addition, we facilitate a good balance between work and private life. At the same time, we pay attention to a safe working climate and diversity and inclusion.
As an organisation, we want to be and remain respected and successful. Correct behaviour in dealing with relations and colleagues is therefore of great importance. This principle applies throughout the organisation. We attach great value to compliance within our organisation and strictly monitor compliance through our compliance committee, among others.
Sustainable improvements
We have already realised the following sustainable improvements within Brocacef and BENU:
Buildings and installations
Our distribution centre in Eindhoven is fully equipped with solar panels. All our new buildings will be realised as energy-neutral as possible and installations will be adapted to systems that require a minimum amount of energy.
In Amsterdam, our new distribution centre with city hub will be developed over the next two years, for which we will partly use emission-free vehicles that can be used efficiently. This city hub will save 200,000 km per year through route optimisation. In Amsterdam, we have also opted for a green image for the building so that it has a pleasant appearance for the surrounding residents. Read more about the new DC Amsterdam.
In Ede, a new distribution centre will also be put into use. In this case by Brocacef Healthcare Logistics B.V. This building will also be built according to the highest sustainability requirements, with which both new DCs will comply with BREEAM certification, with the aim of achieving the 'Excellent' level. To achieve this, air/water heat pumps will be used for underfloor heating of the exhibition areas, office heating and cooling will be provided by a VRF system, LED lighting will be used, responsible building materials will be used on the basis of ISO 14001 and the entire roof will be fitted with solar panels at both locations.
Energy monitoring
By monitoring the consumption of our 350 locations in real time, we can identify deviations with the aim of achieving a continuous cycle of savings.
Reduction of waste
Focus is placed on dealing with products. Delivering in reusable wholesale containers ensures that less packaging material reaches the end user. In addition, Brocacef uses seal-bags for packaging products for submarkets and repeat medication. These appear to be made of plastic, but consist largely of transparent paper, thus making an active contribution to reducing plastic. At pharmacies, we make use of collection points for medicine waste.
Brocacef sends its customers a digital packing list instead of a paper one. In addition, digital scanning is used in the distribution centres and in our pharmacies we now only work with a digital prescription. The number of printers at our head office has also been greatly reduced.
Company clothing
The majority of our workwear is made from organically grown cotton and recycled PET bottles.
Mobility solutions
A pilot project is running with electric delivery vehicles, scooters and bicycle couriers, and the fleet is partly electrified. Recently, 20 new charging stations were installed. Read more about solar-powered medicine distribution in Rotterdam.
We use innovative and smart software to manage, plan and monitor transport routes and shipments. The system is aimed at maximum effectiveness and efficiency and minimises transport movements, thereby reducing CO2 emissions.
