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Responsibility

Responsible business is how we do business

Being commercially successful and operating responsibly is how we will generate sustainable returns for our shareholders and deliver on our purpose, to improve the quality of human life by helping people do more, feel better and live longer.

Trust is essential to how we deliver on our purpose. We have 13 commitments across three focus areas that support our Trust priority.

Key information

Our purpose is to help people do more, feel better, live longer

By using our

science and technology to address health needs

New medical innovations

Develop differentiated high-quality and needed medicines, vaccines and consumer healthcare products to improve health

Progress in 2021

We had three major approvals for medicines, eight phase III starts and have 64 vaccines and medicines in our pipeline.

Read more in the Innovation section of our Annual Report.

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Global health

Improve global health impact through R&D for infectious diseases that affect children and young people in developing countries focusing on HIV, malaria and TB

Progress in 2021

The WHO recommended broader deployment of our RTS,S/AS01e malaria vaccine to reduce illness and deaths in children in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate to high malaria transmission. We made good progress in improving availability of age-appropriate HIV treatment options for children around the world. A generic dolutegravir dispersible tablet was made available in key sub-Saharan African countries, less than a year after US FDA approval of this treatment.

Read more here.

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Health security

Help the world to better prepare for  future disease outbreaks with  pandemic potential, and tackle antimicrobial resistance

Progress in 2021

We were one of five companies on the UK Government’s Pandemic Preparedness Partnership Steering Group, bringing together industry, international organisations and experts to advise G7 governments on how to speed up the response to a future pandemic. The Trinity Challenge, of which we were a founding member, announced the winners of its inaugural competition to find innovative ways to better predict and prevent outbreaks of disease.

Read more here.

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By making our products

affordable and available

Pricing

Improve the health of millions of people each year by making our products  available at responsible prices that  are sustainable for our business

Progress in 2021

When setting the price of our medicines in developed markets, we apply a value-based approach to balance reward for innovation with access and affordability. In developing countries we use innovative pricing structures to extend product reach. In least developed and low-income countries we do not file patents for our medicines and do not enforce historic patents.

Read more here.

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Product reach

Use access strategies to reach 800 million underserved people in developing countries with our products by 2025

Progress in 2021

We have reached over 323 million people with our products using access strategies. By the end of 2020, at least 21.3 million people living with HIV across 119 low-and middle-income countries have access to generic product containing dolutegravir through ViiV Healthcare’s voluntary licensing agreements.

Read more here.

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Healthcare access

Partner to improve disease prevention, awareness and access to healthcare services for 12 million people by 2025

Progress in 2021

We have reached 13.9 million people through partnerships, including with Save the Children, Amref Health Africa and CARE International through our health worker training programme.

Read more here.

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By being a

modern employer

Engaged people

Achieve and maintain a competitive employee engagement score by 2022

Progress in 2021

Engagement remains high at 78% and above the general industry benchmark, settling back to 2019 levels after an extra boost during the early phases of the pandemic.

Read more here.

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Inclusion and diversity

Accelerate our progress on inclusion and diversity, including aspirational targets for female and ethnically diverse representation in senior roles by end 2025, and recognition as a disability confident employer and in LGBT+ indices

Progress in 2021

We have made good progress against our gender and ethnicity aspirations. In 2021, women held 40% of roles at VP and above, up from 38% in 2020. Ethnically diverse leaders at VP and above roles in the UK, was 12.9%, up from 11.1% in 2020. In the US, we had 27.1% ethnically diverse leaders in roles at VP and above, up from 23.2% in 2020.

We developed a three-year plan to increase our disability confidence. We continue to be recognised in global LGBT+ indices.

Read more here.

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Health, wellbeing and development

Be a leading company in how we support employee health, wellbeing and personal development

Progress in 2021

GSK’s Leadership Team has continued to oversee our COVID-19 response, including the health, wellbeing and engagement of our employees in all our locations.

Mental health training continues to be available for all our employees, and 66% of managers have completed it since it launched in 2019. Over 84,000 people completed leadership and business courses through our Keep Growing campus.

Read more about health and wellbeing here, and development here.

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Being a responsible business

Reliable supply

Commit to quality, safety and reliable supply of our products for patients and consumers

Progress in 2021

We conducted 1,833 audits of our suppliers’ quality processes. Our pharmaceutical, vaccine and consumer manufacturing sites and local operating companies had 171 external regulatory inspections in 2021, many conducted virtually because of the pandemic. Where we find areas to improve, we create improvement plans and track their progress.

Read more here.

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Ethics and values

Operate an ethical, values-driven culture, in which any issues are responded to swiftly and transparently

Progress in 2021

Everyone at GSK has to complete training on what the company expects from them. We continue to report transparently on how we respond to employee policy violations, taking appropriate disciplinary action. We undertook an independent assessment of our approach to managing human rights.

Read more here.

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Data and engagement

Use data responsibly and transparently. Improve patient and scientific engagement

Progress in 2021

We evolved our privacy approach to better align with external expectations and the ‘privacy by design’ framework. We established a process to seek patient feedback on the design of our clinical trials, and continue to increase focus on improving diverse representation in clinical trials so that they represent the real world population in terms of age, race, ethnicity and gender.

Read more here.

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Environment

Have a net zero impact on climate and a net positive impact on nature by 20301

Progress in 2021

We set ambitious new climate and nature goals and have been accredited for 1.5°C-aligned emissions reduction targets by the Science Based Targets initiative. We have joined RE100 and 52% of the electricity we used was sourced renewably. By the end of 2020, all of our sites had stopped sending waste to landfill.2

1 This commitment is supported by targets for carbon (including accreditation by the Science Based Targets Initiative) and nature.

2 This achievement excludes waste, such as asbestos, that must be sent to landfill.

Read more here.

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How we report our performance

A summary of progress against our commitments can be found in our Annual Report (PDF-5.43MB) and further detail can be found in our ESG Performance Report 2021 (PDF-911KB).

Sustainable development

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out a vision for ending poverty, hunger, inequality and protecting the Earth’s natural resources by 2030. Realising this ambition will require private sector, governments and civil society to play their part and work together in new and innovative ways.

As a science-led global healthcare company Goal 3, Good Health & Wellbeing, is where we can make the most important contribution. The scale and nature of our business mean that we also contribute to a number of the UN’s goals through our everyday operations. For examples of how we contribute to the SDGs please download our SDG factsheet.

SDG logo

Our contribution to the SDGs

Our contribution to the SDGs PDF - 195.2KB

Our governance structure

board of committees
Our Board Committees

Our Board-level Corporate Responsibility Committee (CRC) oversees our responsible business activities. It meets four times a year to provide high-level guidance and reviews performance against our commitments. Non-Executive Director, Lynn Elsenhans, is Chair of the CRC and both the Chairman and CEO are attendees.

Management of key non-financial risks is governed by our Audit and Risk Committee. The Audit and Assurance team supports this committee by providing an independent view to the Board and senior management of how risk is being managed across the business consistent with an agreed Assurance Plan.

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Your feedback counts

We welcome your feedback on our responsible business performance and reporting. You can also request to receive regular updates on our progress. 

Find out more