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Environmental Policy

Commitment 

At Sonic Healthcare, we recognise our corporate responsibility is to respect and improve the environment in which we work and live, for the benefit of our employees, the communities we operate in, and the medical community and patients we serve.

Our company is committed to meeting all relevant regulatory and legislative environmental requirements of the locations in which we operate. As part of this commitment we also actively seek to understand and minimise our environmental footprint and explore opportunities to deliver long-term environmental benefits. We achieve this through: 

  • identifying opportunities for energy efficiency initiatives including the use of renewable energy systems or low environmental impact vehicles
  • providing education and training for our staff on environmental practices including reducing water use, clinical waste and resource consumption
  • recycling programs for environmentally sensitive chemicals to reduce our contaminated waste volumes 
  • partnering with our suppliers to reduce packaging and transport emissions
  • utilising digital solutions to minimise resource waste across our customer and supply chain
  • responsibly procuring products and services through understanding and evaluating the environmental management practices of our suppliers

Sonic Healthcare acknowledges and accepts the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s finding that warming of the climate system has been significantly influenced by human activity. Whilst the nature of our industry is such that we are not a significant energy consumer or generator of greenhouse gas emissions, we understand our duty to contribute to local and global efforts to address climate change by supporting continuous improvement across our global operations.

Sonic Healthcare’s management is focussed on ensuring the long-term sustainability of our business. We recognise that the impacts of climate change could present physical, natural and human risks for our federation network of service providers, our key suppliers, or the availability of resources for products which are integral to our business. We will monitor our exposure to these risks on an ongoing basis, and will continue to ensure our service offerings are aligned to meet any emerging needs.

In accordance with the Sonic Values of “Demonstrating Responsibility and Accountability” and “Enthusiasm for Continuous Improvement”, our environmental policy includes a commitment to transparency of compliance. We will establish and maintain procedures which specify our environmental objectives and target and facilitate their regular review. The Board’s Risk Management Committee is responsible for providing oversight on Sonic’s identification and response to key environmental issues as well as monitoring our climate change preparedness.

We will assume a leadership role in our diagnostic practices by encouraging our customers, suppliers and other stakeholders to mirror our commitment to environmental responsibility.

Dr Colin Goldschmidt
CEO, Sonic Healthcare
10th September 2015