Sustainable Practices: The Green in Single Use Support

Environmental impact from headquarters and beyond

Single Use Support is committed to sustainability and environmental responsibility in our business operations. We believe that our innovative single-use technologies can contribute to the reduction of waste, energy consumption, and carbon footprint in the biopharmaceutical industry.

As company with “recognition of good performance”¹ Single Use Support has already set ambitious goals for the upcoming years which include to obtain the ISO 14001 certification by 2025 and to reduce emissions by 30% by 2028.

Armin Lassl, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Single Use Support, provides further details about the energy certificate in the following interview.

What measures have you taken to improve the environmental impact when it comes to the headquarters of Single Use Support?

Lassl: "35,000 kWh is generated from our own electricity production and thus around 8% of electricity consumption from the photovoltaic (PV) system. 100% of the remaining electricity is sourced from renewable energy sources. These are composed of 95.5% hydropower and 4.5% other renewable energy sources.

We also have a strong focus on paperless communications: all internal and where possible external communications have been paperless from day 1. This also includes marketing materials, such as brochures, where we keep printed versions to a minimum. In addition, our stands at marketing events have reusable elements wherever possible. This has already saved countless hectares of natural resources and also reduced the need for international shipping logistics."

Talking about energy and transport, what initiatives are in place to reduce carbon emissions due to employees commuting?

Lassl: "One of Single Use Support’s sustainability initiatives is to offer all employees in Austria the “Climate Ticket”, which gives them unlimited access to public transportation in the region at a discounted rate. In this way, we encourage them to use more eco-friendly modes of travel and reduce their dependence on cars.

This is coupled with the introduction of a shuttle service which employees can take for free to our headquarters. This facilitates sustainable mobility with public transport.

Single Use Support promotes electric cars among its staff. Several charging stations have been installed in parking lots in Kufstein and Hall in Tirol, where employees can recharge their vehicles for free. Electric cars not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also lower fuel and maintenance costs.

The same applies to business travel, where public transport or electric cars are aways the preferred option when a destination can be reached easily."

What role does sustainability play for Single Use Support, as you are producing single-use systems?

Lassl: "At first glance, single-use products may not seem sustainable, but they guarantee the necessary safety and quality requirements for medical devices. All of our processes, systems and products have been and allow us to work in a way that conserves resources and to reprocess and utilize resources sensibly in the sense of a sustainable circular economy. For example, the individual material components of our systems, such as metal and plastic parts, can be easily separated and thus reused. Also, our systems are also very energy-efficient compared to conventional systems.

We see sustainability as a task that we want to master even better. After all, sustainability also means social sustainability, a certain working culture and a strong sense of togetherness. We shouldn't worry about child labor or poorly paid work that you can't make a living from either - but these are questions that the industry keeps asking us, because there are many competitors in the world that don't yet have such good standards. This is no reason to rest on our laurels, but to become even better.​"