Reflecting on progress: How we’re playing our part to decarbonise health systems and reducing our impacts on nature

Last week, we published our annual ESG Performance Report, which includes an update on the progress we’ve made against our climate and nature targets in 2023. The report serves as an annual moment of reflection, as we acknowledge the achievements and other insights that will help shape how we approach the year ahead.

The urgency to address the impact of climate change and nature loss on human health has never been clearer. Earlier this year, the first-ever study for the World Economic Forum on global warming’s health effects projected as many as 14.5 million additional deaths by 2050 from more frequent and severe climate-generated natural disasters[i]. Last year, for the first time, COP28 drew the participation of over 65 national health ministers with delegates from 124 countries endorsing the COP28 UAE Climate and Health Declaration. These global and national level commitments, made during the first Health Day, demonstrate an urgent need to build more sustainable, climate resilient health systems, and we want to make sure we are playing our part.

Progress in Carbon Emissions Reduction

There is a lot that I’m proud of from the past year. We reduced our operational carbon emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 10% from 2022-23, primarily due to energy efficiency measures and by increasing the amount of renewable electricity we use. One standout example is the Nashik site in India, which has achieved an impressive 93% emissions reduction since 2020 by transitioning to renewable biomass for heat and to renewable electricity. Moreover, just last week we announced a virtual power purchase agreement to source renewable electricity to facilitate 50% of our European sites' electricity demand from mid-2026.

Advancements in Nature Targets

We’ve also made great progress across our nature targets. Completing baseline biodiversity assessments across all GSK sites and having plans in place to improve biodiversity at nine of our sites are notable achievements. We were also selected to be part of the first group of companies to participate in the initial target validation process with SBTN to set science-based targets for nature, starting with targets for freshwater and land, followed by oceans and biodiversity. Learnings from this ongoing pilot were recently shared and I look forward to sharing more on this later this year. ?In the meantime, you can find out more about our plan for contributing to a nature positive world here.

Addressing Challenges in our Carbon Footprint

When we mapped out our pathway to net zero in 2020, we knew it wouldn’t be a linear journey to reach our ambitious carbon emission reduction targets. This year, while our Scope 3 emissions are 10% lower than our baseline year of 2020, there was a 4% increase in 2022 (our latest available data) compared with 2021. This small increase was primarily driven an increase in the number of patients using our metered dose inhaler (MDI) products which have a high carbon footprint due to the greenhouse gases from their propellant. Ensuring patients can access vital medicines is our priority, however, to address the environmental impact of these inhalers, last November we announced that we are investing in a low-carbon programme and if the clinical trials are successful, it has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from these inhalers by 90% by transitioning to a next generation, lower-carbon propellant. This is an important step in our journey towards net-zero and lowering the carbon footprint of healthcare systems.

Investing in Nature-Based Solutions

We are focused on emissions reductions to meet our net zero goal and have an ambitious target to reduce our emissions by 80% between 2020 and 2030. At the same time, we are investing in high quality nature protection and restoration projects that support our net-zero and nature positive goals, and deliver co-benefits to human health. GSK is now an investor in Climate Asset Management’s (CAM) Nature Based Carbon Strategy, which aims to invest at a landscape scale in grassland, agriculture, forestry, wetlands and coastal carbon projects in developing economies, to provide long-lasting, verified, positive impact at scale for the climate, biodiversity and local communities. We also want to?enable positive impacts?on?human?health in?the investments we make in nature. That’s why last year we co-created an open-source toolkit?with Pollination, which aims to help embed health considerations in the design?and implementation?of nature-based solution?projects, and we will be?seeking to?test?the toolkit?in?some of the investments with CAM’s Nature Based Carbon Strategy. This is a long-term investment over the next 15 years, which aims to secure approximately a quarter of carbon credits that we need from 2030, to meet our commitment to invest in nature-based solutions for 20% of our 2020 footprint.

Addressing Climate Change Impacts on Health

Climate change and nature loss are continuing to create new health threats and changing the spread and burden of disease, with the most vulnerable communities disproportionately affected. This puts increasing pressure on healthcare systems, which already account for nearly 5% of global emissions. That’s why we’re also working to address the impacts of climate change on health and working with our partners to increase the resilience of healthcare systems to climate change. In 2022, together with ViiV Healthcare, we announced an investment of ￡1 billion over 10 years to accelerate global health R&D. By the end of 2023, we had invested 21% and progressed 11 Global Health pipeline assets to address priority WHO diseases,?including climate aggravated diseases that disproportionately affect lower income countries.?

While we’ve made great progress this year, we know there is still much more to do as we work towards meeting our ambitious climate and nature targets for 2030 and 2045. We are fortunate to collaborate with partners, peers, and organisations that share the same commitment to making a positive impact. Stay tuned for further updates on our progress and learnings throughout the year, as the company continues its journey towards a sustainable and resilient future.

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[i] World Economic Forum, Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health

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