Water use

 

In 2007, the use of contact water increased slightly to 15.4 million cubic meters (up from 15.1 million cubic meters in 2006). Major users of contact water were Sandoz (54%), Pharma (27%) and Consumer Health (10%). During 2007, Sandoz was able to further reduce its contact water use by approximately 0.5 million cubic meters, while the other Divisions increased their use. Consumption of non-contact water (mainly for cooling purposes) by the Group decreased by 2.7% from 69.3 million cubic meters in 2006 to 67.4 million cubic meters in 2007. The main use of cooling water was for the control of fermentation processes and for air conditioning of office buildings.

A total of 23.1 million cubic meters (28%) of the total quantity of water (contact and non-contact water) that Novartis uses is purchased from water suppliers, 59.2 million cubic meters (72%) is drawn directly from the environment (from groundwater wells or from surface water bodies), mainly for cooling purposes.

 

Water use targets and outlook

While strategies on the use of cooling water vary from site to site, increasing efforts are being made to further reduce the use of contact water that requires treatment, both in order to reduce pollutant loads and because this is a growing cost factor.

Novartis has set an efficiency improvement target on contact water of 10% for the period 2006 to 2010 (based on 2005 performance), translating to an average 2% annual improvement.

Since 2005, Novartis has been able to improve its average efficiency in the use of contact water by approximately 25%, well above the targeted 4% for these two years.

Divisions and Business Units apply the same procedure for the definition of their contact water efficiency as for their energy efficiency. Contact water efficiency can be measured against sales, production or number of associates.