Andrew King Champions AstraZeneca’s Green Labs and SWOOPs in for Savings

The first Phil Wirdzek Leadership Award winner representing pharmaceutical laboratories has emerged as a green labs leader for both his company and the industry. Andrew King is AstraZeneca’s senior director of HSE (health, safety and environment), sustainability, quality control systems, and IT; he received the Phil Wirdzek Emerging Leader Award in September 2024 in part because his enthusiasm for green labs and cooperative nature have helped motivate AstraZeneca staff across the globe to make efficiency improvements. What’s more, Andrew’s leadership and competitive spirit have inspired other commercial labs to improve their energy efficiency and sustainability efforts.

As Andrew explained, “AstraZeneca has fostered a corporate culture where sustainability is both a driver for change and a lens for looking at processes in a whole new way.” Across AstraZeneca’s global sites, lab facility managers, quality control leads, and researchers innovate to improve sustainability performance, thanks to an environment that Andrew helps foster where research staff are able to take company goals and tailor them to their own laboratories. For example, Andrew pioneered AstraZeneca’s Switch-Off Optimization Program (SWOOP), which challenges scientists to turn off equipment when not in use. Andrew and AstraZeneca also encourage researchers to review equipment procedures at their labs and find opportunities for energy savings by reducing plug loads and HVAC needs.

Andrew has led AstraZeneca’s efforts to certify their research facilities under the My Green Lab program, resulting in nearly 100 lab certifications, including 40 that have achieved My Green Lab’s highest level of certification. He has championed using digital tools to capture and quantify the effects of behavioral change in labs. Researchers set their own challenges to meet company sustainability goals and engage in friendly competitions with other AstraZeneca laboratories. “This approach engages researchers and allows them to see tangible benefits from their actions,” Andrew said.

The Phil Wirdzek Leadership Award is given to individuals or teams that exemplify the late I2SL founder’s spirit of innovation and cooperation. According to Andrew, “In the biopharmaceutical industry, sustainability fosters collaboration among companies rather than competition.” Andrew lives this belief by collaborating and sharing information with other sustainability leaders in his company and industry, even as he fosters competition by spearheading AstraZeneca’s participation in programs such as the Freezer Challenge.

Andrew’s next big challenge is to tackle Scope 3 emissions and bring AstraZeneca’s suppliers along on their sustainability journey. To this end, Andrew helped start My Green Lab’s Converge Initiative, a collective of pharmaceutical industry leaders aiming to propel suppliers toward reducing their environmental impacts. Andrew said he is eager to share the lesson he has learned on his sustainability journey and looks forward to increased collaboration within the pharmaceutical industry.