Merck & Co., Inc.

Merck & Co. is a pharmaceutical company based in Rahway, New Jersey. It is recognized for medicines and vaccines like Keytruda and Gardasil, and also has an animal health division. Merck's operations include making prescription drugs, vaccines, biologics, cancer treatments, infectious disease medicines, and animal health products. Water is relevant to its research labs, manufacturing, and wastewater management.

Merck's 2025 sustainability report shows that the company conducted water-hazardous substances risk assessments for its manufacturing sites in 2025. The Life Science and Electronics divisions evaluated potential water hazard sources from its wastewaters, while the Healthcare division identified water-hazardous substances used in its manufacturing processes. For each site with loads exceeding the PNEC reference value, Merck performed laboratory and pilot-scale studies to identify pollution reduction measures, including optimization of the wastewater treatment process. As of the end of 2025, water management improvements were implemented at 83 sites across different business units. These sites are located in Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Of these 83 sites, 29 had all water-hazardous substances below the no-effect threshold. Therefore, the company's water sustainability efforts do not require any remediation actions for 29 facilities in 2025.

The company has developed wastewater-related policies that it uses to govern its operations, including Life Science and Electronics divisions' sustainability goals. Wastewater management policy requires all sites to comply with local regulations and implement spill prevention measures and water-hazardous substances monitoring programs. Additionally, the spill control policy requires all sites to store, handle, and transport potentially hazardous solutions in a manner that minimizes environmental impact. Finally, sites must also have retention basins for containing and removing untreated wastewater in the case of a spill.