Our Business Activity
Bioiberica is a global life science company committed to improving the health and well-being of people, animal and plants for more than 45 years. We are a world leader in the production of the active ingredient heparin, the main anticoagulant that saves approximately 100 million lives a year, and a benchmark in the manufacture of active and functional ingredients for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, veterinary, feed and agricultural industries.
Our leadership is the result of our passion for life and science, as well as our commitment to excellence, safety, security and sustainability. Thanks to a safe and fully traceable supply chain, based on a circular economy model, we guarantee the productive excellence and sustainability of our operations. At the same time, we reaffirm our ongoing commitment to innovation and the development of projects for new molecules, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and ingredients with partners around the world.
Luis Solera,
CEO Bioiberica
“Scientific innovation allows us to capitalize on our circular economy model to contribute to our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria. This model is guided by three fundamental principles that are core to Bioiberica's identity: economic efficiency, social fairness, and environmental responsibility.“
Our Sustainability Strategy
At Bioiberica, we have a long-standing commitment to social responsibility and continuously seek to enlarge the contribution we make to achieve sustainable development. The SDGs are guiding principles for us in steering our sustainability efforts. In 2021, we were the first Spanish biotech company to obtain certification for aligning our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) management system with the SDGs.
The certification was awarded after an encompassing audit process in which Bureau Veritas highlighted our company’s strong alignment with six of the 17 SDGs. These include: ensuring good health and well-being by creating an effective health and safety system for all employees (SDG 3); ensuring affordable and clean energy (SDG 7); promoting decent work and economic growth (SDG 8); building resilient infrastructure, sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation (SDG 9); advocating for reducing inequality and promoting social inclusion (SDG 10); and promoting responsible consumption and production through Bioiberica’s circular economy business model (SDG 12).
At Bioiberica, we use the SDGs as guiding principles for our sustainability efforts.
Our Sustainability Organization
Materiality Assessment
To ensure consistency, the SDGs also play a vital part in our materiality assessment. For us, it is essential to determine where and how we can contribute best to sustainable development. This is why we carefully analyze our positive and negative impacts (“inside-out perspective”). However, we also systematically identify risks that arise from sustainability-related topics, such as climate change and resource scarcity, for our company by taking an “outside-in perspective”.
In line with recognized standards, we also ensure stakeholder participation for identifying and prioritizing our material issues. In June 2022, we launched an encompassing process including various internal and external stakeholders. One key stakeholder is without doubt our SARIA Group, which is why we have taken account of the sustainability topics identified as material by SARIA in recent years. We sent a questionnaire to our employees, suppliers and clients, asking them to rate the importance of 27 potential material issues we had previously identified and to state additional aspects. Finally, we analyzed sustainability reports of competitors to gain a better understanding of topics frequently considered as material in our industry.
Based on this preselection and prioritization process, ten managers and experts from our company finally discussed and validated the results, providing us with the material topics that are at the heart of our sustainability strategy:
Materiality Matrix
Our Material Topics – Selected Activities and Accomplishments
In pursuit of SDG 3, the occupational safety, health and welfare of our employees is dear to us at Bioiberica and we seek to ensure it in every way we can. The foundation is our safety culture, which engages every person in the company and ensures participation in programs and training on avoiding risks and taking appropriate action in cases of accidents.
Regarding preventive systems and potential risks, we conduct internal health and safety audits at our main production site three times a year and once a year at our other facilities. In addition, we use external stakeholders to test the quality of our systems and measures. Several of our customers regularly inspect our facilities, and all our sites are ISO 45001 certified. In 2022, we had an external fire safety audit conducted by our insurance company. We also started an interesting cooperation with the local police department in Palafolls, Spain, that provides driver training for our people. While we effectively reduce the risk of accidents, the police improved its reputation and received very positive feedback from our employees. In May 2022, our preventive practices were honored with the Asepeyo Antoni Serra Santamans Award, as outlined in our spotlight below.
Health, however, is not only a physical concern for us. We also promote the mental well-being of our employees by conducting voluntary psychosocial assessment and offering training on how to avoid burn out and to address potential bullying in the workplace. In order to measure well-being and employment satisfaction, we conducted a survey among all our employees in 2022, which will be repeated annually. We registered a very high participation rate of 78%, and 92% of the respondents answered that they enjoy working at Bioiberica.
Road Safety training in collabora- tion with the local police department.
We view this high degree of satisfaction also as an expression of our efforts to promote the development and empowerment of our people. These topics are of crucial importance to us – not only because we seek to make a meaningful contribution to SDG 4, but also because we want to make an investment in their future and ours. A good example of our diverse measures towards that aim is the introduction of our new training platform. “BioAcademy” offers many benefits for our employees and our HR community alike by allowing them to manage training on our intranet. Among the various functions are:
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Selecting from a wide array of courses for personal and professional development
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Requesting specific training programs
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Determining job-specific selection of courses
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Easy access to training records and performance evaluations
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Issuing attendance certificates and diplomas
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Evaluating the effectiveness of training measures
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Supporting a smooth onboarding process for new hires
Our people are also a key factor when it comes to establishing good governance in our company, ensuring that we act ethically and with integrity. It comes as no surprise that our criminal compliance management system was certified according to UNE 19601 by Bureau Veritas in 2022 for meeting the strictest legal and regulatory standards without restrictions. This reflects our commitment to maintaining a state-of-the-art crime prevention system, targeting issues such as corruption, bribery and money laundering.
However, we not only try to promote good operational practices inside our own company. We are also active when it comes to supporting our business partners in doing so. In 2022, we started a campaign to increase the biosecurity of firms. Through “Securing the Farm” we offer training and instructional material, such as short videos, to help reduce the risk of potential diseases causing harm to animals and the natural environment.
As we are a company that depends on natural materials for its products, climate and environmental protection are core responsibilities for us.
At Bioiberica, we regard climate change as the greatest environmental challenge of the 21st century, which can only be addressed through an encompassing energy transition. To act decisively, we have devised an energy and emissions strategy that allows us to make a meaningful contribution to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG13 (Climate Action). The strategy is built on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). A detailed analysis and measurement of both the threats and opportunities arising from climate change constitute its basis.
Our primary focus is on reducing emissions, but our strategy also entails measures to offset those emissions that cannot be avoided. In addition to mitigation, adaptation is another important aspect. We need to make Bioiberica resilient to new environmental conditions characterized by an increasing number of extreme weather phenomena, such as storms and floods, both in terms of carrying out our business and protecting our infrastructure.
In pursuit of our strategy, we are committed to efficient energy management and had our main operational sites certified according to ISO 50001. The purpose of this certification is to provide a means to reduce energy consumption, associated financial costs and, consequently, greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Jordi Vidal, CFO and Compliance Officer of Bioiberica, “this certification recognises the hard work carried out by the entire compliance team, which in turn has required the involvement and dedication of the whole company. Our main aim has been to develop and foster a culture of compliance, in line with the strictest ethical and regulatory standards that govern our business. We’re proud of this recognition, which undoubtedly encourages us to continue working and striving to improve and expand our Compliance Management System”
Our commitment is embodied in the following principles:
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Promote efficiency in the use of energy resources in our facilities and activities throughout their life cycle, seeking to optimize processes, operations and the technologies applied
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Promote the search for and acquisition of energy-efficient products and services
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Comply with current legislation and voluntary commitments related to the efficient use and consumption of energy
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Establish energy efficiency goals and targets that promote continuous improvement
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Establish and maintain a management and control system to evaluate and monitor compliance with the proposed goals and targets
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Ensure the availability of information and resources necessary to achieve the proposed energy management targets
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Encourage the participation of workers, suppliers and contractors in developing responsible practices
As a result of our strategic approach and operational excellence, there are many achievements we are proud of and we would like to point out some of them:
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Energy efficiency criteria have been incorporated in the purchase of equipment and the acquisition of services.
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Contracts with electricity suppliers of certified renewable energy have been made and 77.5 % of the electricity consumed already came from renewable sources in 2021, compared to 0 % in 2019.
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The project to generate 1,000 KW of photovoltaic power for our own consumption is underway.
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Regulation of steam boilers has been automated.
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The use of variable frequency drives for high power pumps has become widespread.
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Work is underway to assess the emissions of the entire supply chain with the aim of implementing respective improvements.
The use of recycled plastics will further improve the environmental friendliness of our plant health product‘s packaging.
Climate change inevitably also poses a threat to the agricultural sector and related products, which is crucial for us, since natural materials are at the core of our value chain. Thus, the responsible consumption of material resources in smart combination with circular economy models and encompassing measures against water pollution are cornerstones of the contribution we make towards reaching SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).
Since 1997, when we became one of the first companies in Europe to receive ISO 14001 and EMAS certification, the water vector has been one of our priorities, focusing our efforts on minimizing its consumption and on sanitising the wastewater resulting from our processes. This is why we have implanted different technologies to recycle or reuse water through water-efficient irrigation, rainwater harvesting and the systematic prevention of leakages. To measure our performance, we carefully assess our water input and output as well as the quality of our wastewater.
Waste is of crucial importance to us, not only when it comes to reducing it, but also in terms of using it. Our aim is to design circular economy approaches along our value chain, as we are a vertically-integrated company specializing in the extraction of biomolecules of high biological and therapeutic value. Bioiberica currently has more than 100 products that improve the health of people, animals and plants. Our production system therefore acts as a true bio-refinery, extracting the maximum value from each of the biomolecules present in animal tissue.
To obtain these input materials, we cooperate closely with other stakeholders within the SARIA Group. Van Hessen supplies us with cartilage, mucosa and pancreas, which we use to manufacture different products designed for improving people, animal and plant health. The most famous of these APIs is Heparin. Through such collaboration, we actively use materials in our production process that would otherwise go to waste and be lost in the material cycle.
However, at Bioiberica, we not only think of product inputs and outputs. Sustainable packaging plays a major role in our efforts to work towards a circular economy model. To improve the environmental friendliness of our plant health product packaging, we plan to introduce plastic packaging partly made from recycled materials. Our tests have shown that the usage of up to 50% of recycled plastics in cans made of high-density polyethylene does not infringe the quality of our packaging. The second step of this project consists of selecting the best possible option, considering the three decisive dimensions: product quality, environmental friendliness and cost effectiveness. Moreover, we also need to take the technical feasibility of the installation in our plants into account. Based on this careful analysis, we will introduce the new packages to the market.
Spotlight on Safety and Accident Prevention at Work
At Bioiberica, ensuring the health and safety of our team is a top priority for us. In 2020, we were certified by Bureau Veritas according to ISO 45001, one of the world’s most renowned standards on occupational health and safety (OH&S). The standard specifies requirements for an OH&S management system and provides guidance for organizations on how to establish safe and healthy workplaces by preventing work-related injuries and ill health, and on proactively improving their OH&S performance.
Prevention plays a major role for Bioiberica, since we want to act before accidents happen, always with the goal of them not happening at all. Thus, we are proud of having received the prestigious Asepeyo Antoni Serra Santamans Award for preventive practices in May 2022. Asepeyo is a Spanish non-profit association of business owners that focuses on providing healthcare services and preventing occupational accidents, occupational diseases, common illnesses and non-occupational accidents.
Asepeyo honored our long-standing efforts to promote a preventive and safe organizational culture in general. In particular, it highlighted the road safety training we offer to our teams to reduce transport-related accidents. “The award is the reward for our individual and collective commitment to health, safety and excellence in the workplace”, says Gonzalo Arza, our Director of Health and Safety, who received the award together with Daniel Vega from our safety department on behalf of our entire team.
Bioiberica received the Asepeyo Antoni Serra Santamans Award for preventive practices in May 2022.
Looking Ahead
At Bioiberica, we are determined to become a carbon-neutral company by 2050. To achieve this ambitious goal, we have defined a set of milestones. By 2030, we intend to reduce our scope 1 & 2 emissions by 30% in absolute terms compared to 2019 as the base year. By 2024, we want to source electricity solely from renewable sources and also generate 1000 kW of photovoltaic power.
No less ambitious is our circular economy strategy. We want to design our business model in a way that it is fully in line with a circular bioeconomy. Our raw materials are already exclusively of biological origin and we want to design our processes in a way that the consumption of water, energy and auxiliary raw materials is continuously reduced, so that we obtain 100% efficient and sustainable products.
Related to our key principle of social fairness and in line with SDG 5 (Gender Equality), we have developed a new equity plan in 2022. It aims to ensure equal opportunities for all, for example in areas such as selection, training, promotion and career advancement. The plan has already been submitted to the relevant authority, and its approval will be another milestone for us to work towards greater equality and fairness.
Overall, we are keen on extending our contribution to sustainable development. This is why we plan to seek certification for SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 13 (Climate Action) in 2023. And our board has already given approval to aim for another two – SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 5 (Gender Equality) – one year later. Our intention is to be certified for all of the 17 goals by 2030, the timeframe the UN set out for reaching these milestones in global sustainable development.
