Environmental, Social and Governance

Building trust with society

Building trust with society is a key part of the Novartis corporate strategy and is critical to delivering on our purpose of reimagining medicine to improve and extend people’s lives. Our ESG efforts are integrated across the company and are key to driving long-term sustainable value for our stakeholders.

We believe a focus on our material ESG topics, coupled with our inspired, curious and unbossed culture will drive better performance. ESG topics form a core component of how the Novartis Executive Committee and the Board of Directors evaluate long-term performance of the company. We are committed to reporting transparently on these topics through our Reporting and Transparency Hub, which includes the Novartis in Society Integrated Report (PDF 8.4 MB), as well as our other publications.

We aim to conduct business responsibly wherever we operate with a focus on building a strong ethical foundation, respect for human rights, patient health and safety, diversity, equity and inclusion and the safety and well-being of our employees. We have clear commitments on many other social topics including the living wage, product quality and use of animals in research.

Corporate governance

Our corporate governance framework supports sustainable financial performance and long-term value creation and is aligned with our values and behaviors. In a rapidly changing business environment, we apply effective risk management to build resilience. We continue taking important steps to integrate our ESG agenda into the core of our business, enhancing executive accountability and measuring our performance against transparent targets. Members of the Executive Committee and other senior leaders have ESG targets in their annual objectives.