Alcon’s Vision for a Greener Future

With environmental concerns continuing to dominate the global stage, are large corporations doing enough to mitigate their own footprints? One of the latest trending offshoots of sustainability is plastic neutrality, which sees companies offset their plastic usage by collecting an equal amount of plastic waste from elsewhere and disposing of it in a sustainable fashion (for example, recycling or repurposing). Charles Herget, Global Head of Social Impact and Sustainability at Alcon, tells The New Optometrist about the company’s plastic neutrality partnership with Plastic Bank, its other environmental aims for 2023, and its mission to be carbon-neutral by 2030.

What steps are Alcon taking towards plastic neutrality?

Alcon aims to support the removal of more than 990,000 kg of plastic this year, which is the equivalent of stopping more than 49 million plastic bottles from reaching the ocean. For each ton of plastic that Alcon introduces into the marketplace, Plastic Bank is collecting an equivalent amount of ocean-bound plastic in vulnerable coastal communities. 

The goal of our partnership with Plastic Bank is to offset the waste from our Surgical and Vision Care product portfolio and increase our sustainability efforts. We’re also minimizing other product-related plastics, such as packaging and shipping materials. Plastic Bank is an organization that builds ethical recycling ecosystems in under-developed communities to fight plastic pollution, while providing collection members with a path out of poverty. A recycling ecosystem results from taking plastic out of the environment, creating a new product out of its recycled form, and putting infrastructure in place to ensure that the new product can also be recycled.
 
The partnership covers more than 90 countries, will help more than 330 collection communities globally, and supports more than 2,500 people in Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, and the Philippines. 

How do you measure and track these plastic exchanges?

Every exchange of plastic is recorded through Plastic Bank’s proprietary blockchain-secured platform. The organization and its partners can track the movement of every piece of plastic that enters the recycling ecosystem, from input to output. In addition to this blockchain technology, Plastic Bank conducts regular internal audits of its collection branches to ensure that the plastic waste is properly collected, sorted, and weighed. 

What other environmental initiatives do you have in place?

The partnership with Plastic Bank complements Alcon’s larger efforts to reduce waste, emissions, and chemicals of concern associated with our products and services, which include packaging reduction programs to help find more efficient ways to pack and ship our products.

This year, we’re also providing health insurance and pedicabs – or cycle rickshaws – for a number of Plastic Bank’s collectors and their families. Having their medical needs accounted for allows them to work to break out of the cycle of poverty while making the planet a cleaner place. Additionally, by 2030, Alcon plans to become carbon-neutral across global operations (Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions), diverting 100 percent of non-hazardous waste generated at manufacturing sites and distribution centers from landfill. More details about this can be found in our annual Corporate Responsibility Report.

Recently, we’ve seen a stronger push within the ophthalmic industry and the larger healthcare community to deliver greener policies and practices. At Alcon, we’re absolutely on board with this – simply because it’s the right thing to do!