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Stakeholder feedback

This section summarises feedback on our corporate responsibility (CR) performance and reporting from CR opinion leaders, SRI investors and employees.

CR opinion leader survey
The CR opinion leader survey sought views from 51 people on our CR performance and reporting through telephone interviews. The survey provided in-depth qualitative feedback but was not designed to produce statistics. This is the second year we have commissioned this survey. Nineteen of the participants in 2005 also took part in the 2004 survey. The survey was conducted by an external organisation.

Findings
Overall, participants rated GSK’s CR performance more highly than in 2004..

A significant number also wanted to understand more about how our approach to Corporate Responsibility is integrated with business strategy and management. In addition they identified six priority issues for GSK:

• Access to medicines
• Marketing ethics and advertising
• Research and development of new drugs
• Clinical trial ethics and publication of trial results
• Drug pricing
• Environmental impacts

Access to medicines - We received positive feedback on our access to medicine programmes in developing countries, including preferential pricing and research into diseases of the developing world. Several stakeholders wanted GSK to adopt a tiered pricing system for middle income countries and extend access programmes in developed countries.

Marketing ethics and advertising - Respondents felt our reporting was weakest on marketing ethics. Participants wanted us to be more open about our marketing practices and show how ethical dilemmas are addressed.

Research –. There was praise for our Clinical Trial Register. More information was wanted on research ethics,our relationships with the medical profession and how research areas are chosen

Drug pricing – Participants, particularly in the US, wanted to know how prices are set. There was criticism of profits made by pharmaceutical companies.

Environment – Participants welcomed the breadth of our programmes and quantitative targets. They wanted more on our environment strategy and materials efficiency programmes and for GSK to set a more ambitious CO₂ target and implement programmes to address pharmaceuticals in the environment.

CR reporting
Participants were asked to comment on our 2004 CR Report. They liked its comprehensive coverage and increased transparency but felt it did not show which CR issues GSK considers most important to its business or convey how our approach to CR supports our overall business strategy.

The majority thought GSK’s reporting would be improved by providing more detail on how stakeholder engagement influences our approach to CR,, bringing more external voices into the report, being more open about challenges, and increasing the number of performance indicators.

Feedback from investors
GSK received the following ratings from investors and rating agencies:

Organisation	Rating
Association of British Insurers	GSK was given a ‘full’ rating for its disclosure of Board responsibilities and policies relating to social, ethical and environmental issues. This is the highest possible rating.
Dow Jones Sustainability Index	GSK was included in the DJSI World Index. We came 2nd in the sector with a score of 82% (up from 76% in 2004).
FTSE4Good index	GSK was included in the FTSE4Good Index.
EIRIS	GSK was rated ‘Good’ in the EIRIS draft report on Access to Medicines. Only one other company achieved this top rating.
Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies – Corporate Knights	GSK was included in the Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies, based on research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. GSK is one of only three pharmaceutical companies listed
Morley Fund Management	GSK’s rating improved from A3 to A2 due to greater disclosure and management of key impact areas such as R&D into developing world diseases, access to medicines, ethical issues in R&D, human rights, EHS, and business ethics.
Oekom Research	GSK was rated best in sector by Oekom’s Corporate Responsibility Rating. We received a B rating, an improvement from B- in 2002.
Sarasin Bank	GSK was rated one of the three best performers in the industry based on analysis of company CR reports.
Covalence	GSK was ranked as the top company across all sectors in Covalence’s ethical ranking of the world’s biggest companies.

Feedback from employees
An online CR survey was sent to 980 randomly selected GSK employees to assess awareness of our CR performance and reporting. In total, 375 took part mainly from the UK and US, a 38% response rate. The findings showed that:

• 70% had heard of the term corporate responsibility or corporate social responsibility
• 27% were aware that GSK produces a corporate responsibility report. Of these, most had heard about the report from the myGSK global news site or gsk.com
• Respondents felt that the CR issues of most importance to GSK are: ethical business conduct (88%), access to medicines (50%), health and safety (48%), the environment (25%)
• 70% were aware of GSK’s ethics programmes. For access to medicines this was 68%, health and safety 66%, R&D processes 57%, employment practices 47%, sales and marketing practices 46%, community partnerships 43%, environment 33%.

We are looking at ways to increase employee awareness of our approach to CR and CR reporting. An internal communications programme is being undertaken and we will conduct a follow-up survey in 2006 to measure its impact.

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