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RATING
![C](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/C.png)
Outlook
Positive
SECTOR
Drugs & Biotechnology
Chief Sustainability Officer
T: N/A
E-mail: N/A
Stock Exchange and Ticker
NYSE: NVS
Website
Contact
T: 41 61 324 11 11
E.mail: N/A
Listing
- World’s 25 Best Workplaces – Fortune
- #133 Best Employers for Diversity (2023)
- #281 America’s Best Large Employers (2023)
- #187 World’s Top Female-Friendly Companies (2022)
- #178 Mexico’s Best Employers (2022)
- #91 World’s Best Employers (2022)
- America’s Best Employers By State (2022)
- #264 Best Employers for Women (2022)
- #27 Best Employers for New Grads (2022)
- #68 Global 2000 (2022)
- #415 America’s Best Employers (2021)
Awards
- Medicine Index – Novartis ranked second in 2021
- Dow Jones Sustainability World Index
- Sustainalytics – Novartis leads in the pharmaceutical subindustry group
- Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index
- ISS ESG – B Score
- FTSE4Good
- Access to Machine Index
- MSCI – A rating
- S&P Global
Revenue
$50.54B
Market Capitalisation
$219.65B
Employees
104,323
Content source
- Forbes
- Yahoo Finance
- Awards and Recognition | Novartis
- Novartis in Society Integrated Report 2021
- Climate – Novartis – note the period for this document is January 2020 – December 2020
- Q4 2021 ESG Update for investors and analysts
- United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress 2021
- Novartis Environmental Sustainability Strategy
Novartis Sustainability Report
Evaluation of Novartis
Sustainability Scorecard
![](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/nvidia-score-1-994x1024.png)
Novartis Company Activity
Novartis AG is a holding company, which engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of healthcare products. Novartis comprises several organizational units. The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) is the research arm of Novartis. NIBR focuses on discovering new drugs that can change the practice of medicine. The Global Drug Development (GDD) organization oversees the development of new medicines discovered by the company’s researchers and partners. Novartis Technical Operations (NTO) is responsible for making the innovative medicines, devices, and Sandoz products and delivering them to customers across the world. Novartis Business Services (NBS) now known as Customer & Technology Solutions (CTS) consolidates support services across the organization, helping drive innovation, efficiency, simplification, standardization, and quality. Other corporate functions support the enterprise in specific areas of expertise, including finance, human resources, legal, and communications. The company was founded on February 29, 1996, and is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland (Forbes and Climate-change-information-request-response)
Novartis Sustainability Activity - As per company declarations
Novartis reports on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics and claims these are integrated throughout their strategy. Topics cover access to medicines, global health challenges, environmental stability, and ethical business practices. The targets and progress are clearly specified and include metrics and examples of initiatives in support of their goals. Despite being involved in several scandals, the company does not provide any updates about how it has addressed the issues. Nonetheless, the Integrated Report for 2021 provides comprehensive information on the initiatives the company is taking to reach its sustainability goals. However, on the internet, none of these initiatives are being acknowledged or mentioned by other sources, which questions the credibility of the information in the report.
Certificate & Labels, Standards and Frameworks
- ISO 9001
- ISO 134855
- Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificates
- My Green Lab Certification
- GRI Content Index
- Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Index
- Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
Novartis in the news: Press Reviews and Social Media
The pharmaceutical company spent more than $100 million on lavish meals, fishing junkets, golf outings, sporting events, and speaker fees to influence doctors to prescribe its drugs.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that some data from early testing of Novartis’ more than $2 million gene therapy Zolgensma was manipulated, but the agency believes the treatment should remain on the market. The manipulated data was used to illustrate comparability between an early version of Zolgensma and the later version of the treatment, which was manufactured using a different process. The FDA does not believe that the manipulation impacts the safety or testing surrounding the version of the drug
U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen testified that Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG initially wanted him to lobby for the company when it retained him with a $1.2 million contract, but that Cohen refused. “Novartis sent me their contract, which stated specifically that they wanted me to lobby. That they wanted me to provide access to government, including the president, ” Cohen said.
Novartis AG will cut as many as 8,000 jobs under a plan to save at least $1 billion by 2024 and boost the pharmaceutical giant’s performance. Chief Executive Officer Vas Narasimhan has been under pressure to convince shareholders he can improve the company’s performance. Some of the drugs that the company was counting on to drive growth have failed in clinical trials, run into safety issues, or been delayed.
Novartis’s sustainability-linked bond launched in late 2020 was a world first for the pharmaceutical industry. These involve increasing the availability of certain drugs in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, a concept known as access to medicines. Failure to achieve the targets triggers the payment of a penalty interest rate to bondholders. Critics point to a lack of transparency in the targets and their measurement, and question whether the bond will drive genuine improvements in access to medicines. These issues are fuelling concerns that Novartis’s SLB will become an exercise in ticking the boxes for ESG investment for the company, shareholders and bondholders.
Highlights from Novartis Sustainability Report
Achievements
- 21 Major approvals (US, EU, Japan, China) including two new molecular entity approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- 3 Breakthrough therapy designations from the FDA
- 78 Employee engagement score in Q4 (out of 100), 5 points higher than the industry benchmark
- –34% Greenhouse gas emissions reduced vs. 2016 baseline (Scope 1 and Scope 2)
- Transparent reporting
- 46% of Women in management
Weaknesses and Setbacks
- Lack of sufficient social goals
Targets vs Progress Reported
Target | Results reported |
---|---|
Become carbon neutral in own operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2025 | - Greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2) excluding offsets –34% vs. 2016 baseline |
Include environmental criteria in all supplier contracts by 2025 | - One Novartis site still using PVC for secondary and tertiary packaging but has plans in place to eliminate its use during 2022 |
Reduce waste disposal by half by 2025 | - Waste disposal –56% vs. 2016 baseline Eliminated 17 types of single-use plastics at 132 Novartis sites |
Reduce water consumption by half in our operations by 2025 | - Water consumption –40% vs. 2016 baseline |
Prevent any water quality impacts from manufacturing effluents | - 85%+ of Novartis manufacturing sites meet internal quality standards. Suppliers being trained on Novartis water quality standards |
UN SDGs Compliance Analysis
Progress made toward SDG targets
As reported by Novartis
![SDG 3 for Gucci](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-03-300x300.png)
- An essential initiative in addressing SDG 3 is the listing of a sustainability-linked bond on the SIX Swiss Exchange on September 23, 2020. It raised just under €1.85 billion, about 31% of the bonds issued by the company in 2020 and around 8% of its outstanding bond debt. The bond, which matures in 2028, carries a 0% interest rate but if Novartis fails to reach one or both of its 2025 Patient Access Targets, a penalty interest rate of 0.25% a year will be paid from 2026 until maturity. Novartis is required to publish an ESG report annually until and including 2025, and has the option to redeem the bond at any time after the 2025 report is published
- Novartis’ latest materiality assessment, conducted in 2021, was based on a survey of more than 500 external stakeholders and 12 000 internal stakeholders, and 140 follow-up interviews. Results aligned with previous materiality assessments conducted and were consistent across stakeholder groups: patient safety, access to healthcare, innovation, and ethical business practices were again ranked highly. Although environmental sustainability was ranked lower than other impact clusters, it remains an essential component of our strategy and operating model
- Novartis claims that its commitment to environmental sustainability is an important part of how they build trust with society and is aligned with its purpose. Unless they can operate sustainably, efforts to improve and extend people’s lives may be compromised by their environmental impact
![SDG 5](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-06-300x300.png)
- 85%+ Novartis manufacturing sites meet internal quality standards. Suppliers are trained on Novartis water quality standards
- Novartis facilities and priority suppliers are included in the PiE (Pharmaceuticals in the Environment) program to assess their effluent load of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in water streams against internal standards and requirements from the AMR Industry Alliance framework (author’s note: an alliance of leading biotech, diagnostic, generic and research-based pharmaceutical companies) – a private sector coalition providing sustainable solutions to curb antimicrobial resistance
- Novartis sites use water for cleaning and cooling purposes and as a solvent. To ensure the effective management of water quality, we go beyond regulatory requirements and ensure that our active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are discharged at levels that are predicted to not cause harm to the environment
- In 2021 Novartis established a Green Ambassadors Network to communicate, sponsor, and share sustainability initiatives between local and global teams. The company also launched a global network of colleagues collaborating on sustainability projects and offered new training modules to all employees on the company’s environmental sustainability strategy
- Novartis is committed to embedding environmental sustainability into the design of new products, devices, and packaging. The company assesses the environmental impact associated with all stages of a product’s life, from raw material extraction to processing, manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal
- Novartis provides guidance and tools to our manufacturing suppliers on water quality topics, including tailored mass balance calculator to identify and quantify APIs in wastewater
![](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-07-300x300.png)
- In 2021, Novartis joined the 100-plus company EV100 initiative, demonstrating its commitment to transitioning our fleet to electric vehicles (EVs). Novartis plans to reduce vehicle fleet emissions by over 63% by 2025, and 94% by 2030. In 2021, implementation began in 30 countries, impacting 18,000 of 26,000 vehicles in the Novartis fleet. Also in 2021, Novartis worked with Schneider Electric and nine major pharmaceutical companies through an initiative called Energize to accelerate the adoption of renewable electricity in our shared supply chains in the US and Europe
- We also joined RE100 in 2021, a global initiative bringing together the world’s most influential businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity. Our power purchase agreements with renewable power developers, both existing and in the commissioning phase, are a key vehicle to us achieving our target of 100% renewable energy in the US, Canadian and European markets by 2023
- Construction started for new generation capacity as part of the pan-European virtual power purchase agreement. It will deliver 100% renewable electricity and carbon neutrality for procured electricity in Novartis European operations by 2022 through newly built solar and wind projects in Spain
![](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-08-300x300.png)
- Novartis transformed their approach to performance management and development by replacing annual performance ratings with a flexible, continuous system of coaching, feedback, and recognition by managers and colleagues. Teams and individuals create objectives that include a focus on longer-term impact over several years. In addition, managers and employees have regular discussions on topics including progress toward goals, development, feedback, and well-being
- Novartis began a partnership with the International Rescue Committee in which Novartis volunteers supported 22 refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers to sustain small businesses in the US
- Novartis also engaged with the Tent Partnership for Refugees and committed to providing 50 mentoring opportunities for LGBTQI refugees in the US, Germany, and the UK over the next three years
- In 2021, Novartis developed a strategy and solutions to involve people with disabilities fully in the workplace and ensure they have the same opportunities as everyone at Novartis. This was done in conjunction with external partners, including the International Labor Organization’s Global Business and Disability Network; the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St. Gallen; and The Valuable 500, a group of global organizations putting disability on their leadership agenda
- Through the internal Human Rights Ambassador Network, Novartis worked with the pharmaceutical export business to develop a human rights assessment toolkit. Novartis is piloting two remote human rights assessments in countries with heightened human rights risk
- Internally, Novartis continues to address risks from raw material inputs into the medicines, and as such Novartis is rolling out guides to support the procurement team in purchasing ingredients from certified sources. Externally, through the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative’s Human Rights and Labor Subcommittee, which Novartis co-chairs, investigations continue into human rights risks associated with raw material inputs in pharmaceutical products and to develop approaches for collective action in the company’s supply chains
- The Novartis SpeakUp Office, which from 2021 has been integrated into the Ethics, Risk & Compliance (ERC) function, enables employees and external parties to raise concerns about potential misconduct while being protected against retaliation
![](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-09-300x300.png)
- Novartis supports the global scientific consensus that overuse, underuse, and misuse of antimicrobial medicines all contribute to the spread of AMR and that a balanced approach encompassing prevention, stewardship, access, and innovation is needed.
- Education on responsible use is key to tackling AMR. Novartis embarked on a program with MedShr to train healthcare professionals on antimicrobial resistance, reaching 250 000 individuals through 33 000 engagements. AMR education is a key feature of Novartis’ partnerships with Save the Children in Kenya and with the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association across SSA. Novartis also engages with communities directly in rural areas of Africa and India as part of the Healthy Family program, including on water rehabilitation projects in Kenya and India
- Through STELLA and Bio-Campus, there are developing solutions for enhanced AMR surveillance and recommendations for improved treatment guidelines to mitigate the risk of resistance. As a member of the AMR Industry Alliance, Novartis is working with peer companies to roll out voluntary standards for responsible manufacturing, and with the Responsible Antibiotics Manufacturing Platform (RAMP) on responsible antibiotic manufacturing. Novartis also extended collaboration with Ares Genetics to further leverage molecular predictive antibiotic susceptibility testing to support physicians in selecting appropriate antibiotic therapies
- Novartis was ranked fourth in the 2021 Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark (from fifth in 2020), which evaluates the performance of the world’s 17 largest pharmaceutical companies in the fight against AMR. It has been recognized for performing strongly in the areas of responsible manufacturing, appropriate access, and stewardship
- In 2021, all Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in-vivo research sites received accreditation from the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International, underscoring our progress in conducting responsible animal research
- Novartis adheres to the 3R principles: reduce the number of animals in studies, refine study methods to improve the animal’s experience, and replace animal studies with alternative options. In 2021, for example, researchers across three disease areas joined forces to profile neuroinflammation pathways in a model for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), reducing the number of animals needed for study by 86%. Similarly, researchers reduced the number of animals needed for a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) study by developing a non-invasive method for measuring anti-tumor activity in the same animals over time. We also replaced the use of animals in a training program on key principles of surgery by deploying a new digital training platform
- Novartis is committed to working with third parties who operate in a manner that is consistent with Novartis’ values and ethical principles. While interactions with third parties at Novartis are broadly defined by the Third-Party Code, Novartis identifies, assesses, monitors, and mitigates risk associated with suppliers through the Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) framework
![SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-10-300x300.png)
- In 2021, Novartis and the Novartis US Foundation announced plans to invest approximately USD 13.7 million to establish three research centers at Morehouse School of Medicine in Georgia, including a clinical trial center of excellence that could be a model for possible expansion to other historically Black colleges, universities and medical schools. The investment is part of a 10-year commitment with Morehouse; 26 historically Black colleges, universities, and medical schools; and other organizations. The objective is to co-create programs that address the root causes of systemic disparities in health outcomes and foster greater diversity, equity, and inclusion across the R&D ecosystem
- In addition, Novartis is collaborating with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to support research investigating the link between genetic diversity across different regions in Africa and its potential impact on response to drug therapeutics. With a combined funding commitment of GBP 2.8 million (USD 3.6 million) over five years, the project calls on African researchers to submit research proposals on the relevance of African genetic diversity to the treatment of malaria and tuberculosis
![SDG 13 Climate Action](https://impakter.com/index/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/E-WEB-Goal-13-300x300.png)
- Novartis partnered with One Young World to organize and sponsor Operation Planetary Health to raise awareness about environmental sustainability and to create a movement to accelerate change within the organization. The theme of “planetary health” aligned with and built on Novartis’ environmental sustainability targets and strategy. The event aimed to inspire employees to address specific environmental challenges with actionable and sustainable solutions. Our focus was on carbon neutrality (Scope 3 emissions; emissions in our value/supply chain) and the circular economy. We also sought to gain insights and solutions for emerging issues that do not yet form part of our company targets
- Novartis developed the Novartis Green Expectations from Suppliers document to outline what is needed from our suppliers and support them on that journey. Using the ACCA model, we track and measure suppliers’ journey toward carbon neutrality. The four-stage ACCA framework involves the following:
- Awareness building
- Comprehension of the requirements of the carbon emission targets
- Commitment to achieving carbon neutrality D
- Definition of action plans to meet environmental sustainability targets
- The Green Expectations framework was issued to 43 suppliers in 2021. The Green Supplier Summit complemented the Green Expectations initiative, with 88% of participating suppliers acknowledging receipt. Novartis is engaging its suppliers in dialogue, and this will be underpinned with concrete tools and mechanisms to facilitate suppliers’ journeys as much as possible. The breadth of this engagement – approximately 36 000 suppliers – means the process needs time to yield significant results, particularly among suppliers with whom we do not have direct interaction
- New manufacturing technologies and utility equipment have been upgraded to improve process efficiencies. These updates include continuous manufacturing, biocatalysts, and high-intensity perfusion batches
- In 2021, the Novartis Green Expectations was published, from Suppliers’ engagement framework. Top 100 suppliers are expected to commit to emissions reduction targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and regularly report on their environmental impact management and achievements through CDP
Sustainability Certificates, Awards and Listings
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