Reducing Emissions

Protecting the Environment

At Dentsply Sirona, we are committed to minimising and mitigating the short- and long-term environmental impact of our global business operations. This includes assessing our own operations and working with suppliers to ensure that we are contributing to positive change across the sector.

Measuring Emissions and Emissions Reduction

Reducing emissions is key to our environmental strategy and we understand the importance of transitioning to a low carbon economy. We set intermediate targets to reduce the intensity of our cope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by at least 15% by 2025, and we are pleased to report that we have already met this goal. We are working to develop and report our Scope 3 GHG emissions by valuating the carbon impact from our entire value chain, which includes suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.

We are continuing to work with Schneider Resource Adviser as our global energy management partner and have implemented Green Diamond as our environmental data management platform. These partnerships provide insight into our energy use by location and respective cost, which allows us to effectively manage our energy consumption and concurrently reduce GHG emissions and operating cost. This data also gives us the ability to improve our responsiveness to changing conditions and identify opportunities to consider alternative energy sources.

In 2021, our total Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions intensity (metric tonnes CO2/US$M Net Sales) decreased by 17% from the 2019 baseline measurement, representing an absolute decrease of 5,463 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emitted. However, emissions on an absolute basis increased in 2021 because we added three new sites to our data set. In additional overall site emissions also decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, impacting operations across all our sites. Therefore, we are using the 2019 baseline as a more meaningful comparative for business-as-usual operations.

On-Site Emissions Reduction

Since 2020, we implemented a range of on-site emissions reduction initiatives, including switching to LED lighting, moving from fuel oil to natural gas, replacing pumps and motors with variable frequency drives, introducing better, more efficient equipment, and leveraging technology to replace hydraulic injection moulding.

Bratislava, Slovakia

In September 2021, the Dentsply Sirona team in Slovakia moved in as one of the tenants to Einpark Offices, a new sustainable office building in Bratislava.

Einpark Offices is the first administrative building in Slovakia to gain a LEED PLATINUM certification and is in the top 1% of the most sustainable buildings in the world. The site includes an automatic electric composter that reduces and recovers biological waste in the building, charging stations for electric cars, a rainwater capture system, and a green vegetation roof that prevents the building from overheating and improves the surrounding microclimate.

Several systems in Einpark Offices operate automatically by monitoring temperature and air quality. For example, intelligent air conditioning automatically shuts off when a window is opened or, conversely, intensifies air circulation in the room based on sensors that monitor CO2 concentration.

Thanks to the combination of intelligent technologies and carefully selected materials, Einpark Offices provide up to 77% energy savings and 51% water savings compared to standard buildings. As a result, in one year the Einpark Offices will:

Save 2.3 million litres of drinking water
Save 650,000kg of CO2
Process 50,000kg of bio-waste
Reduce biological waste by 90%

Kazan, Turkey

Our Wellspect manufacturing site in Kazan, Turkey, installed 1,155 solar panels in October 2021, leading to the generation of 300,23 MW of power in 2021. The total yearly saving capacity is estimated to reach 500MVh which equates to a reduction of 150 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. Daily generation changes with weather conditions, but on average the panels supply approximately 15% of the electricity needed to operate the site.

And the team is not stopping there. They are working with engineers to determine if they can install solar panels on the face of the building’s south side. They have also begun a project to replace existing service vehicles with electric ones, which includes constructing parking shades with solar panels on the roofs that would power the vehicles’ charging stations.

Bensheim, Germany

Bensheim is the largest production site owned by Dentsply Sirona and as a result we have implemented several environmental targets and programmes designed to improve the environmental impact of the site. In 2020, we installed technology that measures and detects leakage from our compressed air supply, and by the end of 2022 we hope to reduce our CO2 emissions by 29 tonnes per year and make electricity savings of 90 MWh per year. We also installed hot water heat pump technology in the changing rooms of two buildings which will reduce CO2 emissions by 4 tonnes per year, and electricity saving by 12 MWh per year.

Ballaigues, Switzerland

Our Swiss manufacturing site successfully completed a three-year carbon emissions reduction plan signed with local authorities that resulted in a reduction of 326 tons of CO2 and an increase in energy efficiency of 13% over the 2018-2020 period.

Photovoltaic panels installed at the site generated a total of 156,406 kWh over the course of 2020.

The 63,200-square-foot Dentsply Sirona facility that manufactures and distributes endodontic products in Johnson City, Tennessee, has an impressive track record when it comes to going green. Since 2015, the facility, which currently has 215 employees, has been on a mission to recycle and reuse excess materials like electronics, glass, metal, paper, cardboard, as well as save water and electricity.

“We’ve always been conscientious of the environment, both internally and externally, but we noticed that we still had so much excess trash,” said Marcie Littleton, Technical Resource/Environmental Health and Safety Manager at the Johnson City site. “We saw an opportunity to create a cleaner and safer environment for both our employees and our community.”

In going green, they considered all aspects related to the operation in Johnson City and all activities used in collecting, treating, handling, and disposing of hazardous and non-hazardous materials, and recycling of materials.

“We just didn’t know how much power and water we were using or the impact we were having on our neighbourhood and community,” she said. “This helped us to realise that it’s the right thing to do. We encourage everyone to practice recycling every day.”

Since going green, the site no longer purchases plastic cups or straws, and even had the glass bottles removed from their vending machines.

Johnson City also received ISO 14001 environmental management system certification in 2016, which means that every year, the site must provide evidence that it remains committed to its environmental management system and respective goals to maintain the certification. “It’s a great accomplishment that we take pride in,” said Littleton. “We are proud to be champions of this initiative for Dentsply Sirona and to set a good example for our business partners and our community.”