The clock is running - it's time to act

The year 2020 marks the beginning of the last decade for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. In 2015, all UN member states have set 17 Goals with concrete sustainability targets for 2030. It’s about nothing less than the question of how we can enable a growing world population with limited resources to live in a way that is not at the expense of future generations.

The plans are ambitious, but the starting position is critical. As of today, no country and only very few in the business community are on track to meet all the goals by 2030. We are not only inch worming too slowly towards achieving the targets. In some areas, we are even operating below the 2015 base lines. For example, after a long period of decline, world hunger is growing again. While the UN assumed in 2015 that 777 million people would be undernourished, one year later the figure raised at 815 million. We all have to ask ourselves how we can turn the wheel and get on course together.

“I want you to act like your house is on fire, because it is.” This was demanded by Greta Thunberg at the World Economic Summit 2019, almost exactly a year ago. She is right: Politics, business and society together have to extinguish the fire and find solutions for the global challenges. The clock is ticking – it's time to act.

Our goal at Bayer is to make a positive contribution to society through our core business. As a global company operating in the fields of health and nutrition, we want to make a significant contribution to finding solutions to the most pressing problems of our time. This includes health care, agriculture and, above all, combating climate change. Already in October 2019, I talked about our approach to sustainabilty at the Future of Farming Dialogue.

In December, we presented our new sustainability ambition at Bayer. From now on, sustainable business and financial success will be equally important to us. For the year 2030, we have set ourselves ambitious sustainability goals in line with the SDGs. In April, we will propose to our shareholders to adjust executive compensation in order to fully include sustainability KPIs.

Achieving gender equality

Women play a central role in achieving the SDGs and our ambition alike. Equality between men and women is the decisive factor for the future economic and social development in the world. In many places, however, we are today still far away from equal rights. The lack of access to contraceptives continues to make it difficult for more than 200 million women worldwide to make modern family planning and thus to lead self-determined lives. Access to family planning is the only indicator that has been included twice in the SDG framework.

As a leading company for women's health, we have therefore set ourselves the goal of providing 100 million women in low and middle-income countries with access to modern contraception by 2030. In this way, we want to improve the health, the rights and the economic status of women – as a major step towards increasing gender equality. At the same time, we want to increase the availability and affordability of our products for everyone. We will therefore adjust our prices to local purchasing power and strengthen our access programs.

Combating hunger

Half a billion small farmers in the world – many of them women – are responsible for growing 80 percent of all food consumed in developing countries. Growing food is often difficult and extremely vulnerable to crop failure. Factors such as extreme weather conditions often pose a threat to livelihoods. That's why we, as the market leader in agriculture, want to support 100 million smallholder farmers in low and middle-income countries by 2030. In this way, we want to help improve local food supplies and reduce poverty in rural communities. Digital solutions for agriculture will play an important role here, leading to higher incomes and harvests, but also to more sustainable farming practices.

Health for all

The world's population is ageing, lifestyle diseases are on the rise and the cost of health care continues to rise inexorably. More than ever, it is necessary to promote a healthier lifestyle. Prevention and access to self-care solutions play a central role in this. Here too, there is still much to be done. Today, at least half of the world’s population lacks access to essential health services, including self-care. This is why our Consumer Health division will provide 100 million people in underserved areas with access to everyday health by 2030. The initial focus will be on pregnant women and children.

What we change about ourselves

Our products are an important lever to contribute to our sustainability commitments. In addition, we are taking various measures at Bayer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our company and along our value chain in accordance with the requirements of the Paris Agreement:

- By 2030, we want to become climate-neutral and work together with our suppliers and customers to reduce emissions along our value chain.

- By 2030, we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from crop production by 30 percent.

- We protect forests by limiting land use.

- We are developing new climate-resilient solutions to help farmers around the world adapt to extreme weather conditions.

- We work on the vision of a marketplace that rewards farmers for reducing CO2 and increasing biodiversity.

With all these measures, we aim to make a substantial contribution to achieving the SDGs by 2030. To get there, we have 120 months – and the clock is ticking. Goal #17 is focused on innovative partnership to achieving SGDs. At Bayer, we want to spark social innovation and partner with stakeholders across the globe to reach our commitments.