VP Corporate Environment, Health and Safety
Sustainability in environment, health and safety, the EHS web site,
focuses on the environment, health and safety aspects of sustainability.
Other related issues are addressed in Making
a difference every day - Corporate
Responsibility 2003. While we are making progress, we realise that
sustainability is a very long-term aspiration and that we are only
taking the first steps.
GlaxoSmithKline and the pharmaceutical industry face many challenges in our steps toward sustainability. The environment, health and safety challenges include improving worker health and safety and minimising our impact on the environment from all operations. Our commitment to improving occupational health and safety is reflected in our theme for 2003 of "Reducing Key Risks", which includes such topics as chemical exposure, process safety, driver safety, ergonomics, and emergency response plans. There are also environmental challenges that we have identified as our theme for 2004 that include such issues as producer responsibility including pharmaceuticals in the environment and the need to address our energy consumption profile and its impact on global warming. We also recognise our sustainability impacts such as the potential effects on biodiversity and improving the efficiency of manufacturing the complex molecules that constitute our medicines.
These are the first steps toward environmental sustainability,
focusing on manufacturing processes that minimise resource use
and environmental waste. The next steps are to examine the possibility
of using renewable resources and evaluate the life cycle of GSK’s
products and processes to help us understand how they fit into
the natural cycle. Fitting into the natural cycle means that
raw materials would come from renewable sources and wastes would
be assimilated into the environment without causing harm.
We manage our challenges through a strong and structured
EHS programme and by positive engagement with our stakeholders.
We engage
a panel of stakeholders who advise us on the relevance of our
programmes and we meet with individual stakeholders to obtain
input on issues
of mutual concern. Jonathon Porritt,
Programme Director of Forum for the Future has provided commentary
on this report. Our relationship with regulators is co-operative
and includes relationships with national regulators as well as
relationships
between individual operations and their local regulators.
We believe that clear and transparent reporting encourages trust and we have tried to include on this web site all of the information of interest to our various stakeholders while balancing that against providing so much information that it obscures the facts. We continue to expand the scope of our reporting and we try to improve the way we provide information to make it easier for everyone to understand and use. One of the improvements in the web site that was made this year is the addition of the Global Reporting Initiative Content Index. This should make the information more comparable to other companies.
We made good progress in our EHS programmes in 2003. We continue with a structured approach to EHS, which we call our Framework. Our audit programme continues to monitor compliance with the Global EHS Standards for all GlaxoSmithKline operations as well as key contract manufacturers and suppliers. We set targets in 2001 and have made progress toward all except our waste recycling target and look to be on schedule to meet or exceed most of them by the end of 2005. We expect these programmes to help us achieve our targets but a changing product mix in manufacturing can also have significant effects on our emissions profile.
We rely on the EHS Plan for Excellence to guide our programmes and communicate to all internal stakeholders so they can formulate their own plans in line with the overall plan. The EHS Plan for Excellence sets out a ten-year approach to ensuring that we have a strong, robust management system that addresses conventional EHS issues and begins to address the first step of three on our path to sustainability. Our first step, and immediate challenge, on our path to sustainability is to improve our manufacturing efficiency. This may require a paradigm shift in the way we develop manufacturing processes but this improvement can have a significant benefit in terms of optimising natural resource consumption, reducing waste and reducing the cost of manufacturing.
This year we were pleased to accept the award for best environmental
report from the UK Association of Certified Chartered Accountants.
Our 2002 report was commended for including detailed information
about the way we manage and plan for EHS and for addressing relevant
issues. Our detailed performance data and quantified targets with
verification by a third party were also areas of commendation.
The 7th Index of Environmental
Engagement by Business in the Environment rated GSK among the
Premier League awarding an overall score of 96.93 percent. GlaxoSmithKline
was the number one company in the pharmaceuticals sector in this
index. We are included in the UK FTSE4Good index and in the Dow
Jones Sustainability Index and we are involved in the Carbon Trust
UK campaign to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
All these efforts require the constant dedication of our senior managers and the involvement and commitment of all GSK employees. I am very gratified by this response and the enormous benefit that is created by this level of involvement. We are committed to continuous improvement and have a great deal more to do. However, I am very pleased with our progress to date and especially pleased by the benefits of having a structured 10 year plan of action, clear requirements and supporting efforts afforded by our management system identified in the EHS Framework, and the value of being able to report our results, both good and bad, in this report in order to improve both our performance and our relations with our stakeholders. I look forward to hearing your comments on our efforts.
James Hagan, PhD, PE
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GlaxoSmithKline took first place honours for environmental reporting at the prestigious ACCA UK Awards for Sustainability Reporting 2003. The ACCA recognises transparency in environmental, social and sustainability reporting and rewards organisations that report and disclose information in the most complete and credible way. They look for organisations to address their key impacts and provide demonstrable examples of progress. GSK’s 2002 EHS Report was commended for including detailed information about our EHS framework and ten year Plan for Excellence in addition to wide-ranging performance data and for independent verification, among other factors. The award was presented February 24 by Elliot Morley MP, Minister for Environment and Agri-Environment, DEFRA and accepted by Jim Hagan, VP, Corporate Environment, Health and Safety. |
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