Earlier this week, contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Fujifilm Biotechnologies announced that its facility in Hillerød, Denmark, is now sourcing 100% of its electricity from a local solar plant. The firm has signed a ten-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to offtake 40 GWh from the park.
This comes after news that the Hillerød facility will add eight 20,000 liter bioreactors to accompany its current 12, supporting Fujifilm’s goal of becoming the “largest end-to-end CDMO in Europe.”
The additional bioreactors will run on electric steam to adjunct the company’s renewable energy efforts, supporting the downstream processing of biologics, vaccines, and advanced therapies. The expansion brings the total footprint of the Hillerød site to 51,500 m2.
Jacob Skou, global sustainability manager at Fujifilm, told BioProcess Insider that “the CO2 savings will be in the order of 5,000 tons per year due to the e-boilers, compared to operation with natural gas fired boilers.”
“This achievement reflects our strong commitment to sustainability and our Partners for the Planet plan,” said senior vice president and Hillerød site head Christian Houborg. “We aim to set high standards in sustainable operations within biopharma manufacturing.”
Partners for the Planet describes Fujifilm’s focus on five key areas that can reduce its carbon footprint. The firm seeks to achieve 50% absolute reduction in emissions by 2030 compared with its 2019 levels before attaining net zero emissions by 2033.
According to Fujifilm’s own 2023-2024 sustainability report, across all areas of biotechnology, the company produced over 550,000 metric tons of CO2. That amount of greenhouse gas emissions is equivalent to almost 74,000 homes’ annual energy use. The average carbon footprint per capita in the US is 13.83 tons of CO2, with total emissions being the second highest in the world behind China at almost five billion tons.
Fujifilm isn’t the only CDMO looking to improve its environmental impact. Recently, BioProcess Insider reported on a sustainability panel held at BioProcess International (BPI) Europe in which industry leaders discussed how to construct facilities with a low carbon footprint.
Attitudes surrounding climate change have evolved in the biopharmaceuticals space. Sustainability, once seen as a joke, has become a core business goal for many pharma and biotech companies. Many large players, including AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk, have pledged to go net-zero. Others, such as Pfizer, have donated over $1 billion to fund environmental projects. This corporate cultural shift follows increased public awareness, with more than 85% of UK adults going as far as changing their lifestyle due to environmental concerns.
Fujifilm Biotechnologies has a large CDMO footprint, specializing in the manufacturing of biologics, advanced therapies, and vaccines, with facilities in the US, UK, Denmark, and its home country of Japan. Its holding corporation had an annual revenue as of March 2025 of $21.3 billion, with a current market capitalization of over $27 billion.
The company has been in the news for significant growth and investment within its North Carolina facilities, including for its cell-culture manufacturing facility and for securing a $2 billion site investment from Johnson and Johnson.