For a healthy planet with healthy people: We commit to more sustainability

Cologne Cathedral in the sea, its towers and roof still visible above the floods, the rest of the city disappeared... With this dramatic photomontage, the German news magazine “Der Spiegel” illustrated its first issue on climate change in August 1986. I was 17 and, like most teenagers in Germany in the 80s, probably thought about the weather during those summer holidays, but hardly about the global climate. Yet, the cover image stayed in my memory. Climate change had arrived in the consciousness of the German public.

Almost 40 years later, most of us look at the climate with concern, and many are younger than 17. Today, we see the effects of climate change more clearly, and the data and scientific forecasts paint a clear picture: The impact on the atmosphere and biosphere is significant – and so are the consequences for our health. A few days ago, the latest annual Lancet Countdown on health and climate change report was published. It compiles research findings from 114 leading experts in medicine, health, economics, climate, engineering, and political science. Their figures show that for the coming years and decades we must expect more extreme heat with associated damage to health, more tropical infectious diseases in temperate zones, higher risks of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases – and much more.

In short: Both the causes and the effects of climate change burden health and healthcare systems worldwide. The healthcare industry is committed to preserving or improving people’s health, so it has a dual responsibility in the fight against climate change: On the one hand, to mitigate the consequences for people and, on the other hand, to fight the causes. And all this while we simultaneously need to expand and build access to modern healthcare for around 3 billion underserved people.

Against the backdrop of this dual responsibility, we at #TeamHealthineers have set ourselves even more ambitious goals for sustainable action.

We want to:

• Offer better and fairer healthcare to as many people as possible.
• Reduce our resource consumption and that of our customers.
• Further strengthen the diversity and commitment of #TeamHealthineers.

Ultimately, for us as a company – and me personally – it is very important that we view business and sustainability as one integrated set of goals.

More technology, more education, more healthcare – for everyone, everywhere

More than 3 billion people in low- and middle-income countries lack access to adequate healthcare. And even in industrialized countries, one’s place of residence often determines how healthily and even how long one lives. To address this inequality, we first need to make it more visible. Therefore, we are changing our measurement of success in reaching patients. Until now, we have taken our installed base of equipment in underserved countries as a measure of care quality; in the future, we will use the number of patients we actually reach with our products as a measure. In literal accordance with our purpose statement, we want to democratize access to healthcare and thus make it possible for “everyone everywhere”. One lever for this is technology, another is know-how. Given the lack of well-trained health personnel, we want to offer more training and further-education opportunities worldwide – specifically, we aim to provide 6 million training hours in medicine and health by 2030. This is about a third more than our current offering.

Less consumption, fewer emissions, lower costs = more value for customers and patients

The healthcare sector is responsible for almost 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. To conserve the resources of our planet and preserve them for future generations, we want to achieve more with less. This means reducing energy demand and emissions and promoting a circular economy. We aim to reduce the CO2 footprint of both our infrastructure and our products, to avoid waste, and to recycle more. In so doing, we contribute to achieving our own sustainability goals while also helping our customers with their efforts. The trust that has grown over many years often gives us a good understanding of our customers’ infrastructure and their specific challenges and allows us to derive possible improvement measures.

Highly motivated and with diverse perspectives – for our customers and our team

For most Healthineers, their task in the team is more than a job – they have consciously chosen the healthcare industry because healthcare is an area that connects people across geographical, cultural, and religious boundaries worldwide. I can hardly imagine a stronger and more meaningful motivation than giving one’s best every day for the medical care of people around the world. This commitment and passion for our customers, their patients and for our company is measurable – in quarterly figures, but above all in our company culture. More than three-quarters of our colleagues regularly contribute their ideas, feedback, and perspectives so that we can live and develop our culture. This great interest in and commitment to Siemens Healthineers are cornerstones of our success. We want to maintain our colleagues’ high level of engagement and expand it wherever possible. Directly related to this is the recommendation of our company colleagues as a “Great Place to Work”. By 2025, we aim to have achieved the “Great Place to Work” label in countries covering more than 80 percent of our employees.

Business success and sustainability are inseparable for us. We have put our responsibility for today’s society and future generations in writing in our corporate purpose: “We pioneer breakthroughs in healthcare. For everyone. Everywhere. Sustainably.” We measure ourselves against this.

You can find more in our new Sustainability Report 2023 , which was published a few days ago.