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Bayer receives environmental certification
Bayer Corporation’s Berkeley site is the first in North America to meet one of the most rigorous international environmental standards in the world, company officials announced this week.
Bayer’s Worldwide Biotechnology Center and Biological Products manufacturing facility has been certified as meeting the ISO 14001 standard, a comprehensive set of policies designed to ensure both a high level of environmental sensitivity now, and an ongoing process of continuous improvement.
“Meeting the ISO standard was a true team effort,” Thomas Malott, principal environmental specialist at Bayer Berkeley, said in a news release. “When we made the decision to pursue this standard, we put together a team to assess our environmental management system and make the necessary changes.”
After an initial audit last October, a list of observations was made and all of those were addressed in the final audit.
The ISO 14001 certification means that the company can compete with other biotechnology companies in Europe, where it is expected that the ISO standard will be required.
ISO, or International Organization for Standardization, is a non-government federation of standards groups from more than 130 countries. All standards developed by ISO are voluntary and rigorous. The purpose of the Environmental Management Standard is to ensure that companies operating under the standard not only meet current regulations, but have a process in place by which systems are continuously evaluated and improved.
Bayer’s Berkeley site manufactures Kogenate, Prolastin and Thrombate III. It is also the Worldwide Biotechnology Center, responsible for the discovery, development, and process development of recombinant protein drugs and gene-based therapies. Both are part of Bayer Corporation’s Pharmaceutical Division, headquartered in West Haven, Conn. Bayer Corporation, with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a member of the worldwide Bayer Group, a $29 billion international life sciences, polymers and specialty chemicals group based in Leverkusen, Germany.
