Takeda signs 12-year renewable energy agreement in US
The 12-year agreement between Takeda and Enel North America is part of the former’s effort to reduce its emissions of scopes one and two greenhouse gas by 40% before 2025.
The ‘virtual power purchase agreement’ (VPPA) sees Takeda acquire 350,000 megawatts of electricity annually from Enel’s wind project that is based in Oklahoma, US.
Rather than purchasing the power for direct use, the project is a ‘strategic means’ for Takeda to support the use of wind power at scale, a spokesperson for the company told Outsourcing Pharma. “The agreement accommodates making renewable energy available to the electric grid for broad use,” they added.
The scale of the purchase agreement meets all of the electricity usage needs for Takeda’s footprint in the US, including manufacturing facilities, as well as supply centers, R&D facilities, and other office spaces. The company noted that the agreement would also cover existing plans for expansion of these locations.
Overall, the ambition is for Takeda to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for scopes one and two before 2035, with a final aim of being net-zero throughout its value chain, including scope three emissions, before 2040. With this agreement, the company will be able to reduce approximately 20% of its current emissions.
According to the company’s spokesperson, Takeda was carbon neutral for the first time in 2020, during fiscal year 2019, across its value chain for scopes one and two.
The spokesperson added, “Takeda has a large operational footprint in the US and, while today’s announcement is for a VPPA in the US, we are looking to initiate similar projects in other regions in which Takeda operates to continue to progress towards achieving the company’s net-zero goals.”
Renewable focus
The action by Takeda is part of a broader movement across the larger companies in the industry to rely on the greater use of renewable energy. Previously, Novo Nordisk had invested in a 672-acre solar panel installation to provide power to its operations in the US.
Novo Nordisk is part of RE100, which is formed of a group of businesses that aims to be 100% powered be renewable energy. The organization also contains AstraZeneca, Biogen, and Johnson & Johnson, among other pharma companies.
A group of scientists from Genentech, GSK, and Merck also recently published a paper on drug substance manufacturing and highlighted how manufacturing facilities electricity consumption is the largest driver behind the industry’s environment impact. The research called for a focus on process intensification, due to the resulting reduction in processing times and higher yields produced.
