Highlighting Performance on ESG Priorities and Progress Against Public Commitments

Johnson & Johnson published its 2021 Health for Humanity Report, which shares progress against its purpose-driven Health for Humanity 2025 Goals and serves as its annual disclosure on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. In year one, we have exceeded one Health for Humanity 2025 Goal and are on track to deliver against the remaining 20 goals.

“Events from the past two years have only reinforced our understanding of the critical importance of good health,” said Joaquin Duato, Chief Executive Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “During these extraordinary times, we held tight to our values, kept patients at the center of everything we do and never lost sight of Our Purpose to advance health. Driven by our Health for Humanity 2025 Goals, our 144,000 employees helped to improve health outcomes for patients and healthcare providers; to nurture a culture that embraces diversity, promotes equity and fosters inclusion; and to strengthen the communities in which we live and work.”

See related article: Melike Ayan of ESG News with Rachel Hodgdon of IWBI – Putting “H” Health & Humanity into ESG

In 2021, we continued to focus on solving challenging global health issues that align with our ESG strategic priorities. Built on a foundation of accountability and innovation, these strategic priorities – championing global health equity, empowering our employees and advancing environmental health – guided how we worked to create value for the stakeholders we serve. Highlights from the 2021 Report include:

Championing global health equity

We fostered better health for people, communities and the planet, improving access and affordability around the world:

• Continued our long-standing commitment to address diseases that disproportionately impact some of the world’s most underserved communities, including tuberculosis and HIV, and to apply our expertise and partnering power to expand global equitable access to our company’s portfolio of medicines and health technologies
• Donated > 2 billion doses of VERMOX since 2006 to facilitate treatment of intestinal worms
• Provided 731,000 nurses, midwives and community health workers with skills, tools and growth opportunities* 
• Invested in culturally competent community care models to close racial health gaps, reaching 159,000 healthcare professionals and researchers in the U.S. as part of Our Race to Health Equity platform, a $100 million five-year U.S. commitment to help eradicate racial and social injustice as a public health threat*
• Supported 3,200 fistula repair surgeries through suture donations in 17 countries

Empowering our employees

We cultivated a workforce that is healthy, inspired and reflective of those we serve:

• Refreshed our Enterprise diversity, equity and inclusion strategy, and increased global representation of women and ethnic, racially diverse employees at all levels of our business while reinforcing a culture of inclusion and belonging
• Recommended as a great place to work by 87% of employees

Advancing environmental health

We protected environmental health and the resilience of our business:

• Reduced global CO₂e emissions (Scope 1 and Scope 2) by 34% since 2016
• Signed the Race to Zero/Business Ambition for 1.5°C campaign, aiming to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2045

Accountability & innovation

We are committed to science and data-driven decision making, compliance, integrity and responsible business practices across the value chain:

• Spent $5.22 billion with small and diverse suppliers, exceeding our Health for Humanity 2025 Goal in year one
• Increased our R&D spend to $14.7 billion, the highest annual spend in our recent history

Reporting Frameworks and Standards

• The 2021 Report has been prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards: Core option, and we report our performance against GRI’s Culture of Health for Business (COH4B) framework.
• The 2021 Report includes the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Index, providing disclosures against relevant SASB Standards and Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), building on Johnson & Johnson’s responses to the CDP climate questionnaire in previous years.
• New in the 2021 Report, we’ve added Norges Bank Investment Management and Basel Institute on Governance’s “Measuring effectiveness of anti-corruption programmes” reporting framework, augmenting disclosures against this set of 17 indicators.
• The 2021 Report also serves as our annual United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress.

“As the most broadly based healthcare company, our commitment to creating a healthier society is foundational to our business,” said Joseph J. Wolk, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “How we deliver meaningful impact to human health is correlated with generating long-term business results, which are complementary to ESG actions that create accountability and value.”

Johnson & Johnson will hold an ESG Investor Update Webcast featuring Joaquin Duato; Joseph J. Wolk; Peter Fasolo, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, Johnson & Johnson; three members of the Johnson & Johnson Board of Directors and leaders from across the Enterprise on June 21, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. ET to outline its progress and performance related to its ESG strategy, including highlights from the 2021 Report. Investors and other interested parties can pre-register for the webcast by visiting: https://investor.jnj.com/esg-update.

Source: Johnson & Johnson