Panorama Newsletter

Tecniplast has been recognized as the best company in the lab animal industry for its environmental and social sustainability awareness and sensibility.

This is another piece of our Tecniplast Green Strategy Puzzle that, together with the many other objective certifications and standards, helps vivarium managers evaluate the green credentials of our products and services.

Many products, either disposable or reusable, have recently been under examination for assessing their environmental impacts and address consumer choices. For many organizations the green approach is reliable and applied either for systems management, product design and manufacturing, proven with a complete set of international certifications, for others the Green is a flag to use for business even without green bases. This award is the result of the research among the Top Cage Producers. The renewed European Community strategy for Sustainable Development identifies in Sustainable Manufacturing and sustainable consumption which are the main targets to be reached within the European community. Consumers need to be informed about the environmental concerns. Manufacturers need to use a Life Cycle Thinking approach from the design Phase. European strategy has

been fully applied at least in one case among the European cage producers and has also been confirmed as the highest grade of reliability in the given information.

One of the most important conclusions, very effective for husbandry managers, is that pro-environment ads like “my cages are greener than yours” should be fully supported with evidence.

Green is not a “dream”, Green is a great commitment which starts from the more aware producers and/ or consumers and will involve, unavoidably, other consumers and decision makers. This award is one of the first results which will help vivarium operation managers contribute to Sustainable development requesting, requiring and choosing only Environmental Certified Organizations and Environmental Certified Products.

The most important conclusion for purchasing managers, facility managers and stakeholders is that Environmental claims and certifications should be fully supported by evidence, complete certification or peer review obtained according to internationally recognized standards. Self - declaration is rarely acceptable and even when supported by data, this should be examined critically.

The award has given important suggestions for improving the understanding of the Management System certification and for choosing suppliers on the basis of actual and significant data available and reported in the certificates.

Leopoldo Zauner – Marketing Director