Meet the Honorees: Mike Dieterich, R&D Sustainability Lead, AstraZeneca

The Environment+Energy Leader 100 is an annual list that recognizes the environment and energy “doers” who break trail in creating new solutions, programs, platforms, best practices and products to help their companies – or other companies – achieve greater success in commercial and industrial environment and energy management. Meet the 100… is an ongoing series that will feature one E+E 100 Honoree from 2022 each week. See the complete list of 2022 Honorees here.

Meet Mike Dieterich, US R&D sustainability lead for AstraZeneca. Mike oversees sustainability for US research and development sites and the Ambition Zero Carbon Strategy for the sites in the United States.

What do you see as your biggest environmental challenge? How are you addressing it?

Mike Dieterich: Instead of looking at something as a challenge, I look at it as an opportunity to find a new way forward. The biggest opportunity I had in my career was to quantify sustainability in the built environment using scientific method and publishing the finding in the Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 12, in January of 2018. This has led to a method for identifying and implementation ideas to affect change in the built environment. A pivot from fossil natural gas to renewable natural gas is a great example, which has a win-win-win outcome towards a globally decarbonized future: supporting small to medium size farms, capturing methane produced by agriculture, and eliminating the need for fossil natural gas.

What was a successful project or implementation you worked on at your company that you can share? Do you have any tips that would help colleagues at other companies who are contemplating similar projects? 

MD: One such success was achieving the Better Plants Award from the Department of Energy.

When I was hired as the site energy manager, in 2018, the approach was to use two CHPs to reduce sources’ energy consumption to achieve the 25% energy reduction target by 2020. Operational issues prevented the CHPs from performing as designed. So we pivoted into doing two energy assessments in 2019: an ASHRAE LV II and a DOE Treasure Hunt. We identified over 150 energy conservation measures from these assessments. Then we were able to focus on key projects in 2020. With this new approach, we were able to achieve our Better Plants objective with a 27.3% energy reduction from a 2010 baseline. When obstacles are put in the way, be like water and find a path forward.

What trends do you expect to see in the market in the next few years? What challenges will the industry face and what technologies or organizational changes will overcome them.

MD: Decarbonization of industry and transportation is the direction we are going. Investment in technologies and infrastructure are critical to this shift.

Thermal gasification of municipal solid waste will reduce methane in the atmosphere, free up land use from becoming landfills, and reduce pollution and plastics in the environment — all while reducing the need for fossil natural gas because of the generation of renewable fuels as an output.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are needed to identify efficiencies in the way we operate, live, and interact with transport, energy, and technology. This is the key to solving problems faster.

Tell us about a favorite hobby or passion that has had an impact on your work.

MD: I enjoy hiking and being outdoors. Last November I sailed around the Galapagos. I’ve swum in a lot of oceans and have never seen such a diversity of life in all stages just living and existing as I did in the waters around the islands.

It drives home the fact that not only climate impact from carbon emissions is important but also reducing plastics in the environment, cleaning up forever chemicals, and protecting a minimum of 30% of the world’s ecosystems to maintain biodiversity is key to having a healthy planet.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

MD: Be the change.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cwei510/

Editor’s note: nominations are now open for this year’s E+E 100. Nominate a colleague — or yourself — for the 2022 E+E 100 today.