Thursday, April 8, 2021
Pfizer Inc recently published its first-ever Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, which builds on our prior Corporate Responsibility Reports and our long history of social responsibility.
In a year unlike any other, Pfizer’s purpose-driven commitment to patients and the broader needs of society have never been more urgent. In the face of simultaneous health, economic and culture crises, we took bold steps in 2020 to address the needs of all stakeholders.
Pfizer’s inaugural ESG Report represents a new chapter in Pfizer’s commitment to enhance stakeholder awareness of our priority ESG issues and disclose how our performance on non-financial metrics is contributing to long-term value creation and a sustainable, responsible, and patient-centric business model.
Our 2020 global highlights include:
Pfizer progressed our COVID-19 vaccination trials at the speed of science while remaining grounded in the importance of public trust and our commitment to equitable distribution. We will work with the COVAX facility to facilitate equitable access to our COVID vaccine to eligible countries, with support from partners at the global and local levels.
We were the first biopharmaceutical company to issue a Sustainability Bond ($1 billion+), the proceeds of which are earmarked for environmental and social initiatives. Proceeds are being allocated to enhance our ability to reach more women and children in low-income countries, address antimicrobial resistance, strengthen health care infrastructure and help manage our environmental impact.
We doubled down on our Infectious Disease (I.D.) Impact Initiative, Pfizer’s long-term global health commitment to redefine the way we fight infectious disease and help protect underserved people around the world from these deadly threats.
We set concrete goals to address systemic racism and gender equity challenges by reviewing and augmenting our plans to increase diversity and opportunity parity. Specifically, in Canada, we aim to have 50% of our Country Leadership Council composed of women by 2023 and 30% of under-represented groups. We also aim to have 30% of our workforce representing racial minorities and to increase the number of indigenous new colleagues.
Pfizer has long recognized the societal impacts from environmental issues such as climate change. We successfully achieved our 2020 environmental goals and made a commitment to become carbon neutral across our company’s operations by 2030. The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) has commended Pfizer's 2030 Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission goal as an ambitious 1.5°C-aligned target.
The improvement of our standing on the Access to Medicine Index to fourth place in 2021 from 11th in 2018 underscores our commitment to access and equity in health care. For example, through our ex-U.S. patient assistance programs, we were able to reach nearly 700,000 patients in 2020, some of whom may not have otherwise been reached through traditional commercial channels. In total, we reached more than 58 million patients through access and affordability programs.
We look forward to sharing more progress against the global benchmarks that we have set against these important ESG issues.