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Plan for Excellence

Our EHS Plan for Excellence set out a strategy to improve our EHS performance over a ten-year period from 2001 to 2010. With the end of the first five year period in 2005 we have taken stock and begun extending the Plan for a further five years to 2015.

We developed the plan following the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. It aligned the EHS systems of the two parent companies and laid out an approach for establishing a new EHS framework for GSK.

We use annual action plans to focus our efforts on selected priority issues. As the half-way point in the ten year plan, 2005 was important because it was the year when we aimed to have our fundamental EHS programmes in place, and to reach our first set of EHS targets. The theme for the year was ’Completing Core Programmes’.

Our goal was to ensure that core programmes covering health & safety and the environment were in place throughout the global business, measured by the following:

• implementing at all operations our EHS management system - which is aligned with ISO14001 and OHSAS 18001
• achieving acceptable audit scores at all our manufacturing and R&D operations. We aimed to achieve an average score of at least 75% in each business unit, with no site achieving less than 50% [LINK to Audits and certification]
• achieving the 5-year EHS global targets
• analysing performance against the first set of targets in the Plan for Excellence
• formalising our external stakeholder engagement process

We report performance against these objectives in these pages.

In 2005 we began extending the Plan for Excellence to 2015. We aim to move from a focus on fundamental EHS programmes to address broader environmental sustainability issues. This requires a new approach to manufacturing processes and measuring progress.

We began our review of the Plan for Excellence with an extensive consultation with key internal and external stakeholders to ensure relevant EHS concerns and the needs of the business would be reflected in the extended plan.

• We engaged with external stakeholders about key EHS concerns and expectations of GSK and the pharmaceutical industry
• We undertook a company-wide intranet survey seeking comment on a discussion document that reviewed emerging issues for the business and EHS
• We held individual discussions with selected senior managers in all parts of the business
• We held workshops around the world with GSK's site-based EHS professionals, including sessions on vision and strategy with the Corporate EHS team.

Our managers and EHS professionals told us they want GSK to be among the top pharmaceutical companies in this area, but also that our activity must “add value” to the business.

They want us to work with external organisations, and to be flexible in embedding EHS in business practices – adopting approaches which are appropriate for each business unit.

External stakeholders highlighted climate change, pharmaceuticals in the environment and our policy on the use of chemicals as key areas of concern. They told us GSK should be at the forefront of EHS and sustainability issues and exert a positive influence over others in the industry and in its supply chain.

We published feedback from these discussions in a consultative document for further comment by both internal stakeholders and GSK’s new EHS External Stakeholder Panel. See Stakeholder engagement for more information.

We expect to publish the renewed 10-year EHS Plan for Excellence in mid-2006.

See more background on our EHS Plan for Excellence.

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