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Tecan was founded in Switzerland in 1980 and has pursued responsible business practices since the company’s earliest days. Tecan’s corporate purpose is to improve people’s lives and health, and we do this by empowering our customers to scale healthcare innovation globally from life science to the clinic.
Underpinning Tecan’s purpose and embedded into our group strategy is our sustainability promise: Our products add value to society, our business practices do, too.
Tecan values transparent communications and has published a sustainability report as part of our Annual Report since 2007.
Tecan’s current Sustainability Report is drafted to GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) standards. In this report, you’ll find a statement from our CEO as well as an overview of our sustainability strategy, detailed environmental and social data, and a closer look at our sustainability initiatives.
Below are some sustainability program highlights and useful links.
Tecan joined the UN Global Compact (UNGC) in 2018, and in doing so committed to a precautionary approach to environmental challenges, along with key social impact and good governance principles derived from UN instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Adherence to these principles is tracked by Tecan’s sustainability Group Function and reported on annually via the UNGC reporting platform and on Tecan.com.
Sustainability at Tecan is guided by our Sustainability Committee, chaired by our CEO. Related targets are linked to the variable pay of Tecan’s senior managers. Initiatives are organized around our material topics, key focus areas that have been identified with input from our customers, investors, industry association peers and colleagues:
Focus: Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions generated by our business activities, including energy consumption, integrating eco-design principles into product research and development.
Actions: Tecan has committed to the Science Based Targets initiative and Business Ambition for 1.5°C. Tecan has set the following targets, currently with the Science Based Targets initiative for validation:
In addition to working to reduce the emissions resulting from our business activities, Tecan supports the development of renewable energy capacity through the purchase of high-quality carbon credits, offsetting the remaining emissions associated with our Fluent® and Spark® products as well as our Männedorf headquarters.
Focus: Transitioning from a linear economic model to a circular economy, e.g. by optimizing the percentage of recycled content in our products and packaging, optimizing product lifespan, integrating eco-design principles into product research and development, and reducing waste.
Actions: Tecan is working on initiatives including the development of lighter products and use of more sustainable materials. Eco-design principles are considered in the R&D process: read about the eco-design features of our flagship Fluent® workstation here.
Focus: Demonstrably providing equality of opportunity in business practices including hiring, training and promotions.
Actions: Tecan’s engagement survey results have shown particularly high scores on questions related to diversity and inclusion. Initiatives to advance DEI are described in Tecan’s Annual Report and include flexible working arrangements, mentoring, and dedicated Employee Resource Groups.
Focus: Promoting employee health and safety, wellbeing, talent development, and a positive workplace culture.
Actions: Tecan has been certified a Great Place to Work™ in Switzerland and recognized as one of Switzerland’s best large workplaces. The initiatives that have supported this are pursued globally and are described in Tecan’s Annual Report and in the Careers section of tecan.com.
Focus: Corporate volunteering and philanthropy in line with our business purpose.
Actions: ‘Tecan Gives Back’ has supported eight different health-related charities in the past two years, while also promoting employee health and wellbeing and community volunteering globally. Read more about this popular program here. Additionally, Tecan supports local initiatives such as Dress for Success Worldwide, and the Swiss Special Olympics.
Focus: Tecan’s products are highly regulated, yet it is important to Tecan to go beyond compliance with legal requirements and strive for excellence in product quality and safety, and customer satisfaction.
Actions: Tecan’s Quality and Regulatory Solutions brochure highlights the expertise that enables Tecan to build regulatory requirements into a product order and ensure optimal product quality. We are pleased to work with customers to explore eco-design options, and to support our customers’ greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments. As sustainability practices increasingly become regulated, this becomes another area in which Tecan goes beyond the legal minimum requirements and invests in long-term success.
Focus: Consistently demonstrating good business practices, including in areas such as anti-bribery and anti-corruption, data privacy and tax principles.
Actions: Tecan’s Code of Conduct is binding for all employees, managers and Board members. In this Code, Tecan undertakes to maintain the highest standards in its business activities and to respect ethical values. Tecan’s commitment to Human Rights and Responsible Business practices includes links to related policies, some of which are supplemented with internal documents available to all Tecan employees, such as our Environmental Management System manual and Employee Handbook.
Focus: Managing the social, governance and environmental impacts of our procurement activities.
Actions: Tecan works to ensure responsible business practices throughout the value chain, beginning with supplier commitment to our Supplier Code of Conduct. Working with EcoVadis, Tecan identifies and addresses related risks and is increasing the related reporting of these efforts.
In addition to publishing our Sustainability Report, Tecan participates in a number of external assessments including:
Survey | 2022/23 Rating |
CDP | C |
EcoVadis | Silver, 63/100 |
ISS (Governance) | 1/10 (lowest risk) |
My Green Lab | Silver |
MSCI | AA |
S&P CSA | 38/100 |
Sustainalytics | 13.8 (low ESG risk) |
WDI | 60/100 |
ISO certification related to Tecan’s business practices can be found here.
Tecan's Corporate Policies can be found here.
Tecan’s anonymous, third-party managed whistleblower hotline is accessible at this link.
For more information about sustainability at Tecan please find our Sustainability Report in the Tecan Annual Report (pdf) starting page 35.