Johnson & Johnson has published the 2020 Health for Humanity Report (Report), which serves as the Company’s annual disclosure on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and illustrates progress toward fulfilling its corporate purpose to change the trajectory of health for humanity. The Report documents the Company’s performance and provides information on how the Company generates long-term social, environmental and economic value for all stakeholders; provides an accounting of the final year of progress against the Johnson & Johnson Health for Humanity 2020 Goals and U.N. Sustainable Development Goals Commitment; and details new Health for Humanity 2025 Goals.
“As our world continues to grapple with concurrent and converging health crises, the need to prioritize public health as the foundation for a thriving global economy and society has never been more urgent or more clear,” said Alex Gorsky, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “While our company has been taking on the world’s biggest health challenges for over a century and we are proud of the incredible progress against the 2020 Goals detailed in this year’s Report, we know we must continue to invest in sustainable ways to bring life-enhancing healthcare products and solutions to everyone, everywhere.”
Highlights from the Report include:
- An overview of the Company’s dedication to combating the COVID-19 pandemic, including:
- Development of a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine and a steadfast goal to facilitate equitable, worldwide access.
- The ability to maintain supply of critical medicines, devices and products for customers, patients and consumers.
- Efforts to provide equipment, training, products and financial donations to support communities and healthcare workers on the front lines.
- Details on how the Company protected employees with a variety of workplace enhancements for the one-third of the global 136,000+ employees who continued to work throughout the pandemic at sites and facilities, and by adapting to remote work arrangements.
Better Health for All
- A summary of the Company’s innovation, global public health strategy, and areas of focus on access and affordability, strengthening health systems and supporting people in crisis, such as:
- Received regulatory approvals for vaccines and medicines to prevent Ebola Virus Disease and treat Tuberculosis and HIV respectively—including the first-ever complete, long-acting injectable HIV treatment regimen—while further expanding access to our technologies for vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries.
- Collaborated with global experts to develop or improve three surgical tools used during fistula surgery aimed to provide high-quality instrumentation to increase patient comfort, maximize surgeon visibility, and improve safety for both.
- Committed USD$50 Million to support frontline health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is in addition to an initial USD$250 Million, 10-year commitment made in 2020 creating the Johnson & Johnson Center for Health Worker Innovation in support of one million nurses, midwives, and community health workers. Both commitments were made by the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies and the Johnson & Johnson Foundation.
- Introduced Our Race to Health Equity initiative, a USD$100 Million commitment to invest in and promote health equity solutions for Black people and other communities of color in the United States.
Responsible Business Practices
- Examples of continued focus on responsible business conduct through performance updates on ethics and compliance, human capital management, product quality and safety, environmental health, and responsible supply base, including:
- Investments in the Company’s people and its commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) across every segment of the business.
- Digital innovations adopted by the Quality and Compliance functions to drive effectiveness and efficiencies within quality processes across the lifecycle of our products, such as expanding data science partnerships in clinical quality programs to accelerate insights.
- Reduced operational carbon footprint by 45% (since 2010) and increased use of renewable electricity to more than half (54% of total electricity use in global operations comes from renewable sources).
- Diverse suppliers representing more than 10% of total supplier spend.
- Introduction of the Healthy Lives Mission by the Consumer Health business – a USD$800 Million sustainability investment over 10 years that includes (new) goals to advance human health and protect our environment, including reducing plastic use, using more recycled materials, and making packaging easier to recycle or reuse.
Reporting Frameworks and Standards
- The Report has been prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and this year, we report our performance against GRI’s new framework, the Culture of Health for Business (COH4B) practices and metrics.
- The Report includes the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Index, providing disclosures against relevant SASB Standards, and our first qualitative Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) disclosure, building on our responses to the CDP climate questionnaire in previous years.
- The Report also serves as our annual United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress.
“We are proud to share the progress we made in 2020 and provide further detail around our Health for Humanity 2025 Goals,” said Joseph J. Wolk, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “Johnson & Johnson has a long-standing commitment to transparency and accountability which we have applied to our corporate citizenship and sustainability ambitions by setting goals and sharing our progress. As the world’s largest healthcare company, we have a unique opportunity to change the trajectory of health for humanity and our 2025 Goals serve to deliver long-term value creation for all of our stakeholders.”
