Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Policy
Introduction
Since a humble beginning in 2003, Accumax has come to become one of the largest producers of liquid handling products globally. Alongside other products in our basket, we manufacture about 200,000 pipettes annually, and cater to customers in over 130 countries across the world.
Driven by a culture of change and innovation, we constantly strive to improvise on our technology, process and product quality to provide exceptional precision and ease in usage. This has helped us carve a niche for ourselves, and has become the very reason behind our monumental growth.
While we are constantly exploring different horizons, currently our exclusive product basket includes Pipettes and Pipette, Controllers, Bottle Top Dispensers, Tips, Tubes and PCR Consumables.
Synonymous with the premium quality a complete range of liquid handling Products, Company is committed to delivering consistent quality and versatility of products. Mindful of this, Company strives to consider material environmental, social and governance factors throughout its operation, as safeguarding the environment and society is an essential part of its success.
ESG Governance
Our Board of Directors has the overall responsibility of ESG management by ensuring the consideration of ESG risks and opportunities across the organisation. The Board is supported by the Managing Director who oversees and provides leadership over the implementation of sustainability strategy in Accumax Lab Devices Pvt Ltd. At the management level, ESG responsibilities cascade down to business functions, who supports and ensures processes and controls are in place within its department. We have established a modest governance structure for effective oversight and implementation of sustainability initiatives. The responsibility for driving the implementation of ESG rests with the EHS Officer who leads and approves all ESG related matters and decisions. The EHS Officer reports to the General Manager – Operations, who has the ultimate accountability for managing ESG matters in the organisation.
| Reporting to | Review Frequency |
|---|---|
| Board of Directors | Quarterly |
| General Manager | Monthly |
| EHS Officer | Weekly |
| Departmental Stakeholders | Weekly |
Our Commitment to ESG
Ensure the highest standards in product safety and quality
Be non-discriminatory (whether on grounds of gender, race or disability), and adopt equality and diversity in employment practices;
Respect human rights and ensure no exploitation of child or forced labour;
Act responsibly with respect to the environment, aiming for a sustainable approach to theuse of resources; and
Recognise and manage the potential impact of our value chain to the environment, workers,communities, and society
ESG committee at Accumax:
Mr. Chirag Shah (MD & Chairman)
Ms. Nihalee Shah (Director HR)
Mr. Shrishail Chougula (GM Operations)
Mr. Hemal Bavishi (GM Operations)
Mr. Suresh Parmar (Department Head, HR)
Mr. Piyush Goswami (EHS Officer)
ESG Pillars
We apply materiality in determining the ESG focus areas for ACCUMAX LAB DEVICES PVT. LTD. ESG factors are prioritised based on its impact to our business and importance to stakeholders. The focus areas would be the key drivers for ACCUMAX LAB DEVICES PVT. LTD. to protect and create value for our business, key stakeholders, the broader society, and the environment.
Our ESG pillars include:
Reducing Carbon Footprint
Effective Waste Management & Sustainable Product Packaging
Ensuring Product Quality and Safety
Workplace Diversity & Inclusion
Employee Welfare & Engagement
Occupational Health & Safety
Reducing Carbon Footprint
Addressing climate risks and opportunities across our value chain is key to the sustainability of our business. Where possible, we aim to identify opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint through optimising our energy consumption by:
- Upgrading to more energy-efficient appliances and equipment. We exclusively use injection moulding technologies that use significantly less electricity than the hydraulic technologies used by many of our competitors.
- Explore the possibility of transitioning to renewable energy; most of the power used to run our state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment comes from green electricity, emitting minimum CO2.
- Optimising our logistics and fleet, such as through improving vehicle performance and fuel efficiency. Our dispatch stack accommodates multiple plates of tips, reducing space in transportation. Reduction in space also reduces our overall carbon footprint in shipping and other transportation.
Effective Waste Management & Sustainable Product Packaging
Accumax recognizes that disposing of waste has huge environmental impacts and can cause serious problems. Needless to say, the most important reason for proper waste management is to protect the environment and for the health and safety of the population. It is a very important topic that needs to be addressed, and everyone should be aware why waste segregation can be the difference between the survival of the earth and the worsening effects in the natural biological system.
Accumax cardboard cryo boxes are made from biodegradable and responsibly sourced materials. These boxes are also reused for internal unit material transfers for multiple times.
Moreover, we sell our waste to the GPCB authorized vendors only.
We recognise the impact of waste and packaging, especially plastic to the environment and support efforts that will minimise our ecological footprint. We aim to work with packaging manufacturers on packaging design to accelerate the adoption of circular packaging and products, including, but not limited to, plastics. This can be done through:
Optimizing product packaging through our Reloading Racks:
- Accumax has developed a revolutionary reload system in order to continuously improve our ability in sustainable production. It is intended to maximise storage space while reducing plastic waste. Each rack of Pipette Tips in the reload system contains 96 tips. Each stack accommodates multiple plates of tips, minimizing plastic waste by approximately 70% per pack.
Accumax Paper Racks, a sustainable alternative to plastic racks, works perfectly well with single-channel pipettes for loading and unloading tips.
Being made of biodegradable environment-friendly paper, it can easily support a standard tip rack. With biodegradable paper, it helps each rack consume 60% less plastic. For simpler bulk transportation, the racks are provided in tower-shaped dispensers that take up less space.
Ensuring Product Quality and Safety
We are committed to A stringent Quality Control process flow ensures that the end-product reaching the customer is precisely calibrated and meets the customer’s expectations. Our quality system makes sure that all processes in the company such as product development, purchase, quality control of the raw materials, component manufacturing, product assembly and final inspection are well-defined, recorded and controlled. We have been certified for ISO 9001-2015 & ISO 13485-2016, NABL- National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (ISO 17025:2017 & CE- “Conformité Européenne”).
All our pipettes are calibrated at our ISO 17025 accredited lab and are supplied with calibration certificate. The Variable Volume pipettes go through a 3-point calibration process, while the Fixed Volume pipettes are checked up to 10 times at one volume and the Bottle Top Dispensers go through over 30 readings. This methodology helps us ensure that problems are identified initially before they impact the integrity of the test, and in turn, every product leaving our premises offers flawless performance and guarantees extra-ordinary user experience.
Workplace Diversity & Inclusion
We recognize that any form of discrimination and victimization is unacceptable and strive to ensure that no employee or job applicant receives less favourable facilities or treatment in recruitment or employment on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, ethnic origin, colour, nationality, national origin, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. We also strive to give equal opportunities to all stakeholders. At Accumax we have a healthy ratio of demographics across all units which is ensured by the Human Resource Department.
Employee Welfare
We are committed to fulfilling our responsibility as a responsible employer towards all workers, including migrant workers. Guided by local law and regulations throughout the employment cycle, we implemented a range of supporting policies to ensure that our people are provided with a secure working environment.
We prioritise health and safety of our employees throughout the operations of our business in such a way that all activities are considered with a perspective of prevention of all types of accidents and protection of the people at work. To advance a strong safety culture that effectively prevents accidents, we commit to perform systematic identification of hazards and to manage them with appropriate risk assessments and subsequent actions to minimise danger.
We have in place various policies that governs employee welfare as follows:
Human Rights Policy
Occupational Health and Safety Policy
Employee Handbook (HR Manual)
Code of Conduct (Ethics Policy)
Vigil Mechanism Policy
Prohibition of Forced Labour
Risk Management Policy
Equal Opportunity Policy
Accumax also has an emergency preparedness plan that ensures the safety of all its employees during an occupational hazard.
Accumax has an occupational health centre in place for all its employees in need.
At Accumax we have various activities (Diwali celebration, blood donation camp, cricket tournament, women’s day, Independence Day, and many such) that place all year round to boost the morale and inculcate a culture of human bonding.
Occupational Health & Safety
At Accumax, we consider the health, safety and welfare at work of our employees to be an essential part of being a responsible and productive company that manages business risks and delivers long- term shareholder value. Specifically, Accumax is committed to:
Providing and maintaining a safe place of work, with safe means of entry and exit
Providing and maintaining safe plant, safe equipment and safe systems of work
Providing and maintaining a safe and healthy working environment, by identifying and mitigating or eliminating workplace hazards and reducing occupational health & safety risks
The control of the health & safety risks arising from work activities
Providing and maintaining arrangements for the safe use, handling, storage and transport of articles and substances
Providing and maintaining the necessary information, instruction, training and supervision to protect safety and health at work
Monitoring and Reporting
The Company monitors and reports all relevant indicators to measure and report data and indicators that would best measure the effectiveness of our initiatives and efforts.
The ESG committee continuously reviews the activities and amends the changes where necessary.
