Increasing scientific evidence demonstrates that climate change and nature loss are impacting the world and human health in many ways, including extreme heat contributing to deaths from diseases, increased spread of infectious diseases and air pollution exacerbating respiratory diseases.
The Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change stated that “addressing climate change is the greatest public health opportunity for the century”.
As a science-based healthcare company, addressing our environmental impact is fundamental to our purpose, so that together with our partners, we can help protect and restore the planet’s health, in order to protect and improve people’s health.
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Hear from our CEO on environmental sustainability
Our CEO, Emma Walmsley, talks about our new environmental sustainability goals in climate and nature. She explains why as a healthcare company it is important that we play our part in protecting and restoring the planet’s health to protect and improve people's health.
Delivering our new environmental sustainability goals
The new goals represent a significant new level of ambition and form part of our Trust priority and ESG approach, which support our aim to create long-term value for shareholders and meet the needs of society.
Over the next decade, we will invest in measures to reduce our environmental impact and in restoration projects to balance the remaining impact that we cannot reduce and aim to put back into nature more than we take out.
In order to achieve these goals, we have set a number of specific targets across our direct operations, supply chains and portfolio. We intend to achieve most of these targets by 2030, but where we can accelerate timelines we have committed to an earlier date.
Meeting these new goals will require working across our value chain – from discovery to disposal - and we will work closely with our suppliers, customers, consumers, patients, and external experts, and we are grateful for their support.
Our new environmental sustainability targets
The new goals apply principally to GSK’s Biopharma business and portfolio. Our Consumer Healthcare business will also contribute towards these goals through delivery of its own targets, whilst it is part of GSK.
We will report progress against these underlying targets and two goals on an annual basis, disclosed as part of our Annual Report and ESG Performance Report (PDF-911KB) from 2021. In our 2020 report, we reported against our 2018 targets for a final time.
Delivering on our targets – climate and nature action working together
We will deliver our new environmental targets by taking action on priority impact areas and working with key external partners including suppliers and customers. Our climate and nature goals are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, and we will seek to strengthen those links and benefits wherever possible.
To achieve our net zero goal on climate we will reduce emissions as far as possible, as well as investing in nature-based carbon removal projects linked to biodiversity improvements, which serve to remove carbon and are also nature positive. Examples include tree planting to restore previously forested areas and restoration of mangroves in coastal areas, that store carbon and boost healthy ecosystems.
Progress on many of our nature targets will also reduce our carbon emissions, for example reducing the amount of product packaging will also reduce carbon emissions in manufacturing, logistics and transport. For more on our nature progress, see water, waste and environmental stewardship.
Net zero impact on climate
The Science Based Targets Initiative has accredited that our new carbon targets align to a 1.5° pathway – in line with the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. We have also joined RE100 and EV100 making a commitment to use 100% renewable electricity and transition 100% of our sales fleet to low emission vehicles.
Our climate strategy covers the full value chain of emissions reductions across our own operations, our supplier base and emissions from patient use of our products. This is in line with the Science Based Target Initiative carbon reduction pathway. Across our Biopharma and Consumer Healthcare businesses, the proportion of carbon we anticipate off-setting is less than 20% overall of total emissions. Read more about our climate approach here.
Our new ambitious goals
“As a global healthcare company, we want to play our full part in protecting and restoring the planet’s health, in order to protect and improve people’s health. Improving the environmental sustainability of our business also makes us more resilient, protecting our operations, so we can deliver the products that patients and consumers rely on.”
“Environmental sustainability is critical to Consumer Healthcare. It’s particularly important to our people, customers and consumers, which is why we will be taking bold steps for our business on climate and nature, like generating our own renewable power and using more recyclable and reusable product packaging. Post separation, the new Consumer Health company will be a world-leading business and our new targets reflect this, representing a significant new level of ambition to drive positive environmental change and help improve everyday health.”
“GSK has a strong track record in environmental sustainability, and we are delighted to be setting these new targets which represent a significant new level of ambition. We know that we cannot deliver these goals by ourselves and look forward to working across our value chain ‘from discovery to disposal’, including mobilising our manufacturing supply chain to deliver real reductions in carbon, water and materials use.”
