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Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

Our work with communities

We donate money, time, medicines and equipment to support communities around the world.

Our programmes are long term and focus on addressing healthcare challenges and increasing access to medicines. We also invest in improving education, especially science education, and provide some support for art and environment initiatives.

We believe contributing some of our profits to benefit communities is part of being a responsible company. Community investment also brings us long-term business benefits by improving our reputation, boosting employee morale and helping us build good relations with governments. We do not use community investment as a way of generating sales.

We invest in innovative projects to:

• prevent disease
• build the capacity of community organisations
• promote education, particularly in science

We focus our community investment on areas relevant to our business and the skills of our people. This is where we can bring the most benefit to communities and GSK.

Most of our investment is made through non-profit organisations that are experts in healthcare and education. These organisations are best placed to understand local community needs and to target resources effectively. Donations are made at a company level and by individual sites.

Healthcare

We support major public health initiatives in the developing world. For example:

• We are a founding member of the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GAELF). We have committed to donating as many albendazole tablets as are needed to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), a disabling parasitic disease that threatens 1.3 billion people – one-fifth of the world’s population - in over 80 countries
• Our Positive Action programme works with communities to reduce stigma and improve capacity for HIV prevention and treatment
• Our African Malaria Partnership supports Mobilising for Malaria, an advocacy initiative to generate political commitment and funding to combat malaria
• PHASE – Personal Hygiene And Sanitation Education – is our hand-washing programme for children to prevent diarrhoea-related disease and improve school attendance
• We donate essential antibiotics and other medicines for disaster relief to under-served communities around the world, while specific programmes support low-income, uninsured patients in the US

Education

We support education programmes [link to Supporting science education] in the UK and the US to inspire young people about science, improve their understanding of science and encourage them to pursue a science-related career. Our programmes enable young people to make informed decisions about the science-related issues they meet in everyday life such as healthy eating, vaccinations and the value of medicines.

Measuring impact

We ask our partner organisations for our larger programmes to report annually on the progress of the projects supported by GSK to ensure that the money we give has the greatest possible impact. We review results with our partners and identify any changes required to achieve the programmes’ objectives.