(PRESS RELEASE) SAN RAMON, CA — CooperVision’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility located in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, recently received top honors at the 15th annual Puerto Rico Sustainability Best Practices, Health and Safety Summit. The Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association (PRMA) recognized the site with six prestigious awards for its programs and practices relating to its sustainability and occupational health and safety commitments.
The company was given the Platinum Recycling Award, which is presented to an organization that exemplifies best practice standards in alternate energy and sustainability by achieving greater than 90 percent recycling rates. CooperVision also earned Sustainability Gold for the site’s excellence in reducing the environmental footprint and contributing to sustainable development in Puerto Rico.
CooperVision received an award for its Combined Heat and Power Plant (CHP) project, focused on Leadership in Decarbonization. By capturing and reusing excess heat and avoiding distribution losses, the company’s new natural gas-fueled CHP is significantly more efficient than conventional on-site diesel, natural gas, or propane-powered generators. It also requires less fuel to produce the same amount of energy when compared to traditional generation of power. Additionally, the company was also recognized with three other awards; the Waste in Minimization Award; Honorific Mention: LEED Certification; and the President’s Award, given to companies who exemplify excellence in workplace safety.
“Operating more sustainably to improve the well-being of People + Planet is a core value of CooperVision,” said Rolando Torres, chief operations officer, CooperVision. “These awards are a testament to our ongoing commitment to promoting and supporting environmentally stable practices that benefit employee wellness, health, safety, and productivity.”
As with all its environmental, health and safety (EHS) advancements, CooperVision’s operations team disseminates best practices to its other production sites around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Hungary.
CooperVision’s recent PRMA sustainability award reflects only a portion of its environmental initiatives focused on saving water and conserving energy; reducing, reusing, and recycling resources; and empowering people within the company and communities in which it operates.
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In 2021, CooperVision partnered with Plastic Bank to fund the collection and recycling of ocean-bound plastic equivalent to the weight of plastic used across a range of its participating soft contact lenses, including the lens, blister and packaging components, that are sold and distributed across 27 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. To date, the effort has prevented the equivalent of more than 305 million plastic bottles from entering the oceans.
The company is continuously working to minimize environmental impact and operate more sustainably around the globe as part of broader efforts across CooperCompanies to contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. For more information, visit www.coopervision.com/sustainability.
