Dentsply Sirona shared its third sustainability report, highlighting the company’s actions to drive sustainability internally and in the dental industry.

Dentsply Sirona published its third sustainability report, highlighting that the company has continued to successfully take action to drive sustainability internally as well as within the dental industry. The 2022 sustainability report was launched at Dentsply Sirona World Las Vegas, the company’s annual clinical education event for the dental industry.

“I’m pleased that in 2022 we once again demonstrated our commitment to sustainability and made solid progress against all our goals, be they environmental, social, or governance related. In fact, we are now in the process of setting our next set of goals to supersede the 2025 goals we have met ahead of time – reducing our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emission intensity and water withdrawal intensity by 15%,” said Erania Brackett, Dentsply Sirona’s senior vice president, orthodontic aligner solutions and customer experience, and head of sustainability. “For me, a special highlight of the past year has been the launch of our Sustainability Educational Curriculum. It is our response to the need for more knowledge expressed by a large number of dentists in our global sustainability study. The curriculum is available online on DS Academy and aims to help empower dental professionals around the world with the knowledge they need to drive sustainability within their practices and labs.”

Dentsply Sirona’s sustainability strategy is built on three pillars of action:

  • Healthy Planet – striving to mitigate the environmental impact of the company’s operations;
  • Healthy Smiles – improving oral health globally; supporting customers; and fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive company culture;
  • Healthy Business – maintaining and building trusted and responsible relationships with all stakeholders by establishing sustainable and safe practices across the business.

In 2022, Dentsply Sirona continued to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions, water withdrawal, and total waste, in line with its strategy and targets. The company has conducted energy and waste audits across several sites globally and is putting measures in place, such as solar panels at certain manufacturing sites, to further reduce on-site energy consumption and waste.

Dentsply Sirona is increasingly using and developing digital tools and solutions to become a more sustainable business. DS Core, Dentsply Sirona’s digital cloud-based platform operates on the Google Cloud Platform, which is powered by 100% renewable energy, according to the company.

Dentsply Sirona is also taking action to improve the sustainability of packaging materials associated with its products. This includes the use of more sustainable and recyclable packaging options such as replacing plastic bubble wrap and foam with paper, switching to commonly recycled plastics, and reducing the size of packaging boxes.

Dentsply Sirona has also continued to support Smile Train to advance cleft care. Since 2021, the company has supported more than 2,700 cleft surgeries and completed donations in cash and in-kind of over $1 million.

Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train entered a three-way partnership with the FDI World Dental Federation to develop a first-of-its-kind set of protocols for digital cleft treatment with the aim of increasing quality and access to oral care for patients with cleft around the world. The global digital treatment protocols were finalized and launched in 2023.

In 2022, Dentsply Sirona also made progress towards its goal to achieve gender parity by 2025. Additionally, 55% of global hires in 2022 were diverse, according to the company. Dentsply Sirona has achieved gender pay parity in the US, its largest market, for professional managerial levels and is working diligently to close the small remaining international gap by 2025.

“The reason we continue to make great strides in our sustainability ambitions for the third year running lies in our culture of unity combined with an unwavering focus on providing superior solutions for patient and customer care and our unwavering determination to build a more sustainable business,” said Simon Campion, president and chief executive officer,
Dentsply Sirona. “With sustainability principles in our hearts and minds, we will continue to drive transformative innovations as well as cooperation across our industry to make a positive impact on the lives and health of millions of patients and the planet on which they live.”

Photo courtesy of Dentsply Sirona