Boehringer Ingelheim, headquartered in Ridgefield, Conn., recently hosted an Earth Day event for its employees, according to a company press release. Last year, BI invested $25,000 on the Earth Day event. BI employees were able to properly dispose of or recycle more than 14,000 pounds of hazardous, universal and Connecticut regulated wastes. BI sent more than 1,000 pounds of shredded confidential documents for recycling.

As part of the event, BI employees donated over 400 pounds of non-perishable food items to the Dorothy Day Hospitality House, 38 pairs of prescription eyeglasses to the Lions Club and 47 cell phones to support HopeLine community domestic violence services. In addition, BI employees pledged to find ways to reduce waste they generate at work, participate in environmental and energy conservation teams at work and in their communities and practice Green Chemistry techniques in their research.

Boehringer has a site-wide strategy for energy conservation and cost reduction. The BI Green Initiative aims for a 20-percent reduction in CO2 emissions generated by onsite and offsite activities by 2020. Some company initiatives include:

A study was performed of the Physical Sciences Building to understand the range of operating conditions and make the appropriate changes to fine tune the control sequence. As a result, electrical consumption for the building was reduced by 13 percent resulting in an annual reduction of CO2 of approximately 225 tons.

A review of operating conditions was performed as part of the Process Development Lab Chiller Energy Project, to maximize efficiency and reduce unnecessary operation of the two chillers. Beginning in October 2011, the chillers are now shut down over the weekend and restarted on Monday mornings. Shutdown of both chillers will save electrical energy in excess of $25,000 annually and will result in a 100-ton reduction in annual CO2 emissions.

An investigation was conducted to improve the efficiency of the central plant’s chiller by producing and distributing chilled water for the existing building loads in a more cost effective and efficient manner. The improvements are expected to provide a 20 percent electrical energy reduction at the chiller plant equaling $190,000 per year and reduce annual CO2 emissions by 750 tons.

Single Stream Recycling is coming to the Ridgefield campus. By helping BI to recycle more materials, the company reduces the volume of materials sent to be burned for energy recovery, reducing BI’s Carbon Footprint.