Energy Management Projects

Energy consumption continues to be a top priority for California, the nation's most populous state – home to one of every eight Americans. In an effort to increase its use of renewable energy there, Abbott is installing a large, 500-kilowatt hour solar power system to produce electricity for parts of the company's vascular plant in the southern part of the state. This marks the company's first solar panel installation in the United States.

Other key recent accomplishments in the area of energy management and use include:

• Completed planning for a cogeneration plant at a new manufacturing site in Tlalpan, Mexico, to be installed in 2008. If approved, this project will yield lower GHG emissions. It will produce electricity and thermal energy from the same fuel source.
  
• Facilitated a European Energy Workshop to communicate our Climate Responsible Energy Policy to our employees and to set objectives to achieve short- and long-term goals.
  

In 2008, we will:

• Partner with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) to conduct manufacturing energy assessments.
• Expand monthly Web-based worldwide energy data collection.
• Implement worldwide energy efficiency, conservation and alternative-energy projects, and convert from fuel oil to cleaner-burning natural gas.
• Installing a solar energy system at our diagnostics plant in Delkenheim, Germany that will generate 21,000 kilowatts of electricity and reduce CO₂ emissions by 19 metric tons per year.
• Reducing electricity costs by $1 million per year at our headquarters in Abbott Park.
• Developing plans to install cogeneration capacity in a manufacturing facility in Mexico.
• Undertaking a cogeneration project at one of our manufacturing facilities in Pakistan.

Moving forward, our global energy efforts will focus on:

• Executing a worldwide energy communication process.
• Optimizing fuel oil purchasing and replacement options at our manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico.
• Identifying and implementing worldwide alternative energy projects.
• Initiating monthly Web-based worldwide energy data collection.

Abbott is increasing efforts to integrate green engineering technologies and concepts into our regularly scheduled projects, such as reroofing and other renovations, as well as new building design. As part of this effort, we are pursuing waste reduction initiatives that may have a significant positive impact. Some of these projects involve new and emerging technologies that, if proven successful at one plant, may improve our global environmental performance at other locations.

Climate Leaders

In 2006, Abbott joined the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Climate Leaders program, a voluntary industry-government partnership. Climate Leaders works with companies to develop long-term comprehensive climate change strategies. Partners are required to set an aggressive, companywide greenhouse gas reduction goal to be achieved over five to 10 years. The EPA individually evaluates each proposed reduction goal against the projected performance of the partner's sector, and continuously tracks partner progress through a variety of means, including internal inventory tracking, reporting and goal tracking spreadsheets. Climate Leaders partners represent a variety of sectors, from heavy manufacturing to banking and retail.

Stakeholder Engagement

In 2007 we joined the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world's second largest carbon market and the only one that allows trading in all six greenhouse gasses (GHG). All members commit to a 6 percent absolute GHG reduction over four years. Members can achieve their commitment by either reducing emissions or purchasing offsets on the CCX market. We estimate Abbott will generate GHG reductions that exceed the 6 percent commitment.

We respond annually to the Carbon Disclosure Project, publishing our greenhouse gas emissions data and information on the business risks and opportunities presented by climate change. We also participate in the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders program and the Business Roundtable Climate Resolve initiative.