We are proud to be launching our 2024 Sustainability Report which places advancing health and wellbeing at the core of our sustainability framework. For almost 50 years, we have focused on producing high-quality medicines and making contributions to society.
By advancing health and wellbeing, we ensure our decisions and actions align with our purpose of putting better health within reach, every day.
The report details the progress we made last year across our key priority which is Advancing Health and Wellbeing and our supporting areas of Empowering our People, Protecting the Environment, and Operating Transparently and Ethically.
In 2024 we talked to hundreds of individuals and organisations including our colleagues, customers, suppliers, investors and local communities and patients because we wanted to understand more about the sustainability issues that matter to them, and what actions we should take to address them. What we heard was clear. we need to focus on what we do best and where we can make the greatest impact and that is in Advancing Health and Wellbeing.
To achieve this objective, we also have three foundational aspects guiding us, Empowering our People, Protecting the Environment, and Operating Transparently and Ethically.
From the feedback we were also told that transparency matters – that we need to communicate openly, providing clear metrics and targets to show our progress and we have also built this into our approach going forward.
Last year, we made significant progress in advancing health and wellbeing. We launched 132 medicines across our three regions, improving the lives of countless patients. Globally, we were able to treat more than 262 million patients, which demonstrates the true impact of our efforts.
Additionally, we worked closely with our communities by providing educational opportunities, donating food, and, of course, offering medicines to those most in need. For example, last year, we donated medicines worth four million dollars to support those facing the greatest challenges.
In 2024, we revisited our approach towards our employees, emphasising a culture of progress and belonging, along with wellbeing to drive engagement. We introduced a key metric of 73% employee engagement to continue tracking our progress.
Regarding our environmental protection efforts, in 2024 we have intensified our focus on key impact areas. Globally, this includes our carbon dioxide emissions, while in the MENA region, it specifically relates to the responsible use of water.
Last year, we reduced our carbon dioxide emissions yet further and are now tracking a 17% reduction in scope 1 & 2 emissions against of base year of 2020.
Importantly, we have also linked both the reduction of our carbon dioxide emissions and the responsible use of water to our senior executives' bonus programme.
Operating transparently and ethically is fundamental to our ambition of advancing health and well-being. As part of the supplier and customer ecosystem, we have intensified our focus on maintaining transparency and ethical standards.
In addition to introducing new performance metrics, we are assessing our employees' knowledge and understanding of our ethics and compliance training. Notably, 98% of our employees successfully completed this training in 2024.
Our outputs from 2024 and our new Sustainability framework clearly demonstrate how we are progressing and where we are heading.
By focusing on advancing health and wellbeing, empowering our people, protecting the environment, and operating transparently and ethically, we strive to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the lives of patients worldwide.
Access to medicines remains at the heart of everything we do and we are committed putting better health within reach, every day.
