Merck is engaged in numerous initiatives worldwide to reduce water use:

• We have assigned a water manager at each major site who is responsible for identifying water use reduction opportunities, preparing a facility water "balance" to help prioritize the implementation of best practices and conducting water audits to identify leaks and opportunities to reduce water use.
• We are implementing best practices at all new and remodeled facilities and updating existing facilities. Examples include: carefully controlling cooling systems operations, repairing steam distribution systems and traps, recovering and reusing steam condensate and water purification reject water, optimizing production of process water, avoiding use of water in mechanical seals, such as in pumps, and considering the total cost of water in project evaluation.
• We have adopted a corporate commitment to build all new laboratories and offices to achieve LEED^® Silver Certification or its equivalent globally. We have achieved LEED^® certification for our new administration building in Durham, North Carolina and are designing our new facility in Ireland to meet LEED Silver requirements. For further details on our awards, click here.
• Merck is also a member of the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) at the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton in Philadelphia. At the 2009 IGEL conference, Integrative Thinking about Life Cycle Analysis: Promises and Limitations, Merck sponsored a panel on Valuing Water in Life Cycle Analysis.

Related Topics:

For details on the treatment of our wastewater, see the Emissions, Effluents and Waste section.

For details on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (PIE), see the Product Stewardship section.

The content on this page was last modified on September 15, 2009.

Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA, and Schering-Plough Corporation, Kenilworth, NJ, USA, are now one company. We have combined our global operations under the name Merck & Co., Inc. We are working to update our corporate responsibility Web site to reflect our new, combined, global organization.