Environment

Delivering our climate and nature goals is now a fundamental part of our business. That’s why we continue to integrate sustainability into our operations.

Achieving these goals will require collaboration across our entire value chain – from discovery to disposal - and so we will continue to work closely on sustainability with our suppliers, customers, consumers, patients and external experts.

Beyond the impact we have on the environment, we are also helping to adapt and build resilience to the new health challenges that a changing environment will bring. We’re doing this by developing and manufacturing new medicines and vaccines for the diseases most affected by climate change. We’re also playing our part in building strong health systems, especially in locations that are most vulnerable to climate-related shocks.

Global health

Our climate strategy covers the full value chain of emissions reductions across our own operations, our supplier base and emissions from patient use of our products.

We have set out a projected pathway to reaching net zero carbon by 2045 and identified the key activities that will help us reach this goal. 

The Science Based Targets Initiative has accredited that our climate targets align to a 1.5° pathway and approved our net zero target for 2045 in line with their Corporate Net-Zero Standard, the world’s only framework for corporate net-zero target setting in line with climate science. We have joined the Race to Zero: a global UN campaign, which aims to build momentum around the shift to a decarbonised economy. We have also disclosed climate change risks aligned to the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) since 2019 – see our climate related financial disclosure as part of our Annual Report (PDF - 9.3MB).

The science is clear that nature loss is happening at a faster rate than at any time in human history. ¹Human health relies on the fundamentals of nature: clean air and fresh water. To protect human health and get ahead of disease, we need to protect nature².

We are a part of the first group of companies to be working with the Science Based Target Network (SBTN) to set science-based targets for nature, starting with targets for freshwater and land, followed by targets for oceans and biodiversity. These targets will focus on locations across our value chain where nature is particularly under pressure.

We were also one of the first companies to announce that we are committed to publish our first TNFD aligned disclosures in 2026 Annual Report, based on 2025 data.

Our plan to contribute to a nature positive world is in line with the goal of the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

Our approach is through four focus areas which are aligned to the ‘realms’ of nature as defined by TNFD and SBTN³. These are the major components of the natural world – freshwater, land, oceans and atmosphere – including the biodiversity of living species across these realms.

We will also invest in the protection and restoration of land use across and beyond our value chain, in a way that also contributes to carbon removal and water basin restoration – further helping us to achieve our climate and water targets.

To find out more about our how we plan to deliver these goals across our business, please see our climate, freshwater, land, oceans, atmosphere and materials and waste pages. 

¹Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services | IPBES secretariat

²Biodiversity and Health (who.int)

³Definitions of nature - TNFD