Our global supply chain is structured to create value locally and globally and help us meet our customer needs. We are collaborating with our partners and suppliers to mitigate the environmental impact of our supply chain such as CO₂ emissions from our distribution centers, transport activities, packaging, employee business travel and other sources, as well as the ethical and labor risks inherent in operating in and working with suppliers in higher-risk countries.
We distribute our products from our strategically located distribution centers. Orders are electronically transmitted to the distribution center nearest to the customer's location. This helps us deliver high-quality service quickly to our customers and supports our climate goals by offering the shortest possible distance to deliver our products.
In the U.S., we continue to work with United Parcel Service (UPS), one of our key transport partners on our joint commitment to sustainability. We operate an enhanced network of mostly ground transport which uses special operating plans to reach specific customers by ground in one day. Without this network, we would require air transport to guarantee next-day delivery service to our customers. We review and monitor the emissions from this enhanced network annually to avoid unnecessary emissions and identify further improvement opportunities.
Packaging matters to our business and customers as it protects the product during storage, distribution, and transport.
The choice of packaging material, the extent of damage prevention, and the product-to-package ratio help to determine the footprint of our packaging operation. Damage prevention is an important aspect of sustainable packaging. If a product is sufficiently protected before it reaches the customer, it only needs to be manufactured once and shipped once.
We also take a variety of circularity measures at our distribution centers globally to reduce packaging impact. We have worked with our logistics partners to assess our packaging processes. Together, we have used those observations and recommendations to improve our packaging processes, practices, and materials choices across our distribution centers. We have also received validation that we have good packaging practices in place, including sufficient and consistent packaging operations, effective damage prevention practices, labeling techniques, and special sealing methods to stabilize larger packages.
We are committed to upholding human rights standards in all areas of our business and support the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which provides a practical, useful framework for businesses to manage and address the Company's human rights impacts in the supply chain. Please see our Human Rights Statement. We also support various existing and emerging supply chain transparency laws, such as those in effect in California (the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act 2010), the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (2021), the UK (the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015), and in Australia (Modern Slavery Act 2018).
It is our expectation that our suppliers also conduct themselves in an ethical and lawful manner, and respect human rights in all their business dealings. As part of this, we have developed a Global Supplier Code of Conduct to clarify our global expectations in the areas of business integrity, human rights, and employee health and safety.
We are committed to working with a diverse supplier base that includes small businesses owned by ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ+, disabled, veterans, service-disabled veterans, historically underutilized business zones (HUBZone), and small business enterprises, to provide our customers with the best selection of high-quality products and to foster innovation, additional perspectives, and develop stronger relationships with the communities we serve.
Our dedication to supplier diversity is a continuous learning journey and our processes will continue to evolve. As the demographics of our customers and their patients change, we are committed to supporting them and partnering to serve their needs. We welcome opportunities to partner with our constituents on building meaningful programs and focuses to advance supplier diversity.
Henry Schein maintains high-quality standards and the Henry Schein Quality Policy reflects our commitment to quality at every level of the organization. As applicable, our facilities maintain worldwide-recognized Quality Management System certifications with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and International Standards such as ISO 13485:2016 or ISO 9001:2015. For our Corporate Brand products, we have received marketing authorizations from domestic and international agencies, such as the FDA, Health Canada, European Medicines Agency (EMA), and Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), and our Quality Management System includes product and service information, labeling, marketing communications, as well as any potential non-conformance with product specifications.
We have procedures designed to help ensure compliance with both the FDA’s Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) for pharmaceutical traceability throughout the supply chain and the Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulations for medical devices. We have procedures in place aimed at minimizing the health and safety risks of the products we distribute.
For more detailed information about our efforts, please see pages 15-18 of our Sustainability and CSR report.