Three leading health and pharmaceutical companies — GlaxoSmithKline, Teva, Takeda – and EcoVadis, the leading provider of sustainability risk and performance ratings for global supply chains, today announced the launch of the Responsible Health Initiative. The mission of the new sector initiative is to use collaboration and technology to improve the visibility, efficiency and sustainability impact of the global health supply chain.
“As business models across the health and pharmaceutical industries continue to evolve and overlap, it makes sense for organizations to focus on shared needs, goals and opportunities in sustainability, and act on them through the collective industry supply chain,” said Pierre-Francois Thaler, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of EcoVadis. “Peer collaboration is a proven model for enabling companies in any sector to easily harmonize sustainability performance measurement and extend visibility. We are confident the Responsible Health Initiative will help create the networked impact the healthcare industry needs.”
The effort will increase shared value across the industry’s supply chain by enabling key players in the global health sector to boost not only their own sustainability performance, but also that of the industry’s collective group of suppliers. The initiative will be powered by EcoVadis’ trusted platform and scalable methodology, which offers deeper transparency and insight into supply chain corporate social responsibility practices.
The shared vision for the Responsible Health Initiative includes:
- Harmonizing industry standards for online CSR assessments, with reliable indicators and global benchmarks
- Adopting a common platform to ease sharing of CSR performance among suppliers/third parties and RHI members
- Implementing shared tools to boost supplier engagement and improvement plans
- Working together to reduce risk and increase visibility in the supply chain
Organizations in the Responsible Health Initiative will be equipped to access untapped sustainability potential across the industry supply chain, identify high-performing suppliers and best practices, reduce operational disruptions, mitigate risk, and drive value with suppliers.
“Being part of the Responsible Health Initiative will help us leverage digital sustainability intelligence to more effectively select and partner with suppliers who share our values,” said Val Monk, Head Ethics and Risk Programmes GSK.
The Responsible Health Initiative marks the sixth sector collaborative managed by EcoVadis and will take learning from other industry efforts in account, including that of Together for Sustainability, Railsponsible, AIM-Progress, Joint Audit Cooperation (JAC) and the Responsible Beauty Initiative.
To learn more about the Responsible Health Initiative, please visit: http://responsiblehealthinitiative.com/.