BD Executive Vice President Stephen Sichak
When the global medical technology company BD decided it wanted to boost sustainability in its operations, the details on how to do that fell to Executive Vice President Stephen Sichak and BD’s Office of Global Sustainability.
In addition to global sustainability, he is responsible for global procurement, manufacturing and supply chain operations, environmental health and safety, and facilities and aviation.
Sichak will be one of four presenters at NJBIA’s Innovation Summit on Wednesday to share how he used innovation to:
- Reduce BD’s energy consumption by more than 15 percent while increasing renewable energy to 33 percent of the total;
- Reduce BD’s hazardous waste by 50 percent; and
- Reduce BD’s total waste to landfill by 50 percent.
“People think of innovation as the bold breakthrough, the bolt of lightning idea. I’ve come to learn that simply reframing the question and seeking solutions to the problems often results in innovation.”
The results of the sustainability efforts earned BD the designation of Green Partner by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These accomplishments have also contributed to BD being named to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index since 2005, to the FTSE4Good Index since 2003 and to the 100 Best Corporate Citizens List in 2016 and 2017.
They are not done either. The original sustainability program ran from 2009 through 2015 and BD has geared up itsefforts to further improve sustainability through 2020.
“We accomplished something that seemed unlikely in 2009,” he said. “Moving forward, we’re going to take the same approach: reframing the question and using innovation to deliver the answers.”
