Our globalised world faces increasingly interdependent challenges. To address the climate emergency, biodiversity loss, global health issues, inequality, and growing humanitarian crises, we need to collaborate and embrace a diversity of approaches. By working together to find science-based solutions, we can push the boundaries of science to build a brighter future, for everyone.
At AstraZeneca, we take a holistic approach to the delivery of life-changing medicines, embedding sustainability into everything we do. We know that taking action to drive sustainability is fundamental, not only to the health of the planet, but to the health of our society and people.
What is sustainability in healthcare?
Sustainability was defined by the United Nations Brundtland report “Our Common Future”1 as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Prioritising sustainability in healthcare, with science-based targets, will not only unleash potentially transformative solutions now but deliver strong, resilient health systems for all, for the long term.
Learn more about what science can do to build a sustainable future in the video below:
Harnessing the power of science and innovation and our global reach
To build a healthy future for people, society, and the planet, we must all play our part. By using a science-led approach, we are transforming the future of healthcare and making a positive impact.
Our sustainability strategy has three interconnected priorities: Access to healthcare, Environmental protection and Ethics and transparency. It is our shared understanding of these priorities and collective actions that will drive real change.
Access to medicines, prevention, diagnosis, and life-changing treatments
As a company built on delivering positive health outcomes across the patient care pathway, we’re working to remove barriers to healthcare and give everyone the chance to be as healthy as possible.
Along with our pioneering work during the COVID-19 pandemic to deliver vaccines around the world, there are many ways we are working to improve access to medicines and healthcare for more people, wherever they are.
For example, through programmes like Healthy Lung, Healthy Heart Africa and the Young Health Programme, we have already reached more than 44.6 million people2 and trained more than 126,000 healthcare workers, as well as training more than 260,000 young people as peer educators, to combat non-communicable diseases, through raising awareness, prevention, training, screening, early diagnosis, and management.
Protecting our planet through science-based targets
Our approach to sustainability includes bold, science-led actions that accelerate the delivery of net-zero healthcare with the lowest possible burden on the planet.
Through our flagship Ambition Zero Carbon programme, we are on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our global operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 98% by 2026 (from 2015 baseline) and halve our entire value chain footprint by 2030 on the way to a 90% reduction by 2045 (from 2019 baseline). These targets have been verified under the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Net-Zero Corporate Standard. By 2030, we will become carbon negative for all residual emissions.
To achieve these targets, we’re maximising the share of clean heat we use and transitioning to an electric vehicle fleet. We’re also innovating in our medicines, developing next-generation respiratory inhalers with near-zero Global Warming Potential.
Our AZ Forest commitment to plant and maintain 50 million trees worldwide by the end of 2025, will help protect biodiversity and revitalise fragile ecosystems, building community and ecological resilience.
Upholding ethical excellence and empowering people through inclusion
A truly sustainable future must be built with everyone in mind. The final piece of our approach to sustainability is creating societal value beyond the impact of our medicines. We’re doing this by embedding ethical, open and inclusive behaviours across our organisation and value chain, and inclusive projects like STEM intiatives and Girls Belong Here, which are empowering the next generation of science professionals.
We’re also making progress within our own ranks, with over 49% of women in senior middle management roles. And because we interact with such an extensive network of suppliers globally, we have the opportunity — and responsibility — to promote these kinds of practices within the healthcare value chain. In 2022, we increased the number of countries in our Supplier Diversity Programme outside the US to seven — an important step towards our 2025 target to expand our Supplier Diversity Programme which provides opportunities for small and diverse businesses to work with us, across more markets.
We believe working in this way, championing ethical behaviour, inclusion and diversity is essential to the breakthrough ideas that will ensure the success of our company and achieving our sustainability goals.
Driving action across the healthcare value chain through collaboration and partnerships
To deliver against our sustainability strategy, we are actively looking for ways to develop meaningful partnerships. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us the value of solidarity and cross-discipline collaboration in solving the biggest global issues. But the pandemic also laid bare existing weaknesses in many healthcare systems world-wide and the urgent need to build in more resilience.
To help countries strengthen their health systems, in 2020, we launched the Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience (PHSSR) in collaboration with the London School of Economic (LSE) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Joined by other partners including Philips, KPMG and Apollo Hospitals, the Partnership establishes a framework against which resilience is measured and offers an opportunity for a rigorous analysis of our health systems. The PHSSR programme has now expanded to more than 30 countries.
Collective action is also essential to address the healthcare sector’s own carbon footprint. Approximately 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the sector,3 from pharmaceutical manufacturing to hospitals. To accelerate the decarbonisation of healthcare, our CEO champions the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Health Systems Task Force, which brings together leaders from industry, the WHO, UNICEF and academia to decarbonise supply chains, reduce the footprint of patient care pathways and accelerate digital innovation.
We're harnessing the power of science and innovation and our global reach to build a healthy future for people, society, and the planet. We're transforming the future of healthcare and making a positive impact by embedding sustainability into everything we do – from the lab to the patient.
Healthcare transformation – everyone has a role to play
Whether it’s the teams using the latest AI-based technology to bring preventative screening of lung cancer to countries where this wouldn’t usually be possible, colleagues working hard to make our labs greener and more efficient or those bringing more diversity and digital solutions to our clinical trials, the efforts of our employees are critical to enabling us to achieve our sustainability goals.
At AstraZeneca, we are guided by our shared commitment to ethical excellence, empowering people through inclusion, increasing access to medicines and quality, sustainable healthcare for more people, and minimising the environmental impact of our products and processes. We believe now is the time to direct collective human efforts across industries, specialisms, and sectors to solving sustainability challenges so we can build a brighter future for all.
