Sustainable Development Goals

global prevalence of heavy intensity schistosomiasis infections

Our priority areas lie in eliminating schistosomiasis and preventing malaria through our expertise in science and technology. Our strategy is to develop and provide medicines, improve diagnosis, counter disease transmission, increase disease control, expand access to healthcare, and strengthen local health systems.

• Our Global Health Strategy
• Our focus programs
• Our goals for health for all

As a science-driven organization, we aim to apply our knowledge and curiosity to prevent and control non-communicable diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and hypertension and to improve the health and well-being of people across the globe.

• Our Healthcare pipeline
• Innovative approaches to diagnostics
• Creating awareness of non-communicable diseases

babies born with the help of our products.

We are world market leader in fertility treatments. We want to help couples realize their dream of having a baby. Building on our fertility expertise that dates back to 1906, we continuously develop innovations in fertility.

• Our expertise in the field of fertility
• Building families in Asia

With our support, more than 890 GPHF Minilabs help to identify counterfeit medicines worldwide.

Our Global Health Strategy is designed to overcome access barriers for underserved populations and communities in low- and middle-income countries in an economically viable and sustainable manner. We are working to prevent cost from becoming a barrier to treatment. We secure our products against counterfeiting and are resolutely committed to fighting product-related crime.

• Our Global Strategy
• Prices of medicines
• Product-related crime
• Our goals for health for all

were conducted in 2020. Due to Covid-19, we performed fewer EHS audits than in the previous years.

The safety of our plants, warehouses, and processes is a key element of our environmental stewardship practices, allowing us to protect both our workforce and the people in the immediate vicinity of our sites. We examine our environmental, health and safety (EHS) activities by performing regular audits of our sites and we established ambitious safety standards for our products and processes.

• Our approach to environmental stewardship
• Our approach to plant and process safety
• Our approach to chemical product safety
• Our approach to transport and warehouse safety
• Developing green solvents

– the number of Covid-19 vaccine development projects we are supporting worldwide.

Using an integrated approach, we develop new medicines, diagnostics and preventive care tools. Our aim is to strengthen approaches to control and eliminate schistosomiasis, malaria and other infectious diseases. In addition, we develop platform technologies to develop and manufacture new vaccines, also for Covid-19. We also engage in treating non-communicable diseases in patients in need. Furthermore, we are committed to pricing our products responsibly.

• Our approach to open innovation sharing
• Our role in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic
• AI in drug discovery
• Pat-INFORMED
• Research grants for pandemic preparedness

We involved over ten African countries in the PAVON project in 2020.

We aim to strengthen healthcare systems by building capacity in the research, development, production, and delivery of medicines, making them more resilient to health crises. We are partnering with key institutions in Africa to establish the Pan-African Vivax and Ovale Network (PAVON), centers of excellence for epidemiological surveillance and scientific research on malaria. The project supports policy making and offers training to African scientists.

• Our Global Health Institute
• Enabling independent medical education
• Collaboration with NALA foundation in Ethiopia
• Capacity building to strengthen local health systems
• Preventing and controlling malaria transmission: PAVON

Supporting community projects at the locations where we operate is especially important to us. We sponsor many educational projects aimed at creating and supporting the next generation of scientists.

• Our good deeds: education
• SPARK: igniting a passion for science

We strongly support equal opportunities for all genders. In addition to recruiting talented students, we provide financial assistance through scholarships and we cooperate with universities, student initiatives and associations. We continuously invest in new technologies and integrate these into our vocational training programs.

• Vocational training and dual study programs
• Career with us
• Global Health Institute’s educational programs

We support our employees’ personal and professional development in line with their strengths, ambitions and competencies. Our People strategy serves as a basis for our continuous efforts to attract, retain and develop our leaders and our talent. It underlines the importance of curious and talented staff.

• Career with us
• Our People strategy
• Vocational training and dual study programs
• Trainee programs and job orientation

We do not tolerate discrimination, physical or verbal harassment or intolerance. We are signatory of various declarations underlining our commitment to equality, fairness, inclusion, and tolerance in working life.

• Our commitment: Group-wide Social and Labor Standards Policy
• Our commitment: Industry-wide initiatives and regulations
• Taking action against discrimination
• Healthy Women, Healthy Economies initiative

We are determined to better understand and support the emotional, financial and health implications of being an unpaid caregiver. We focus on raising awareness in the media, broadening stakeholder engagement, shaping policy, and engaging healthcare systems.

• Embracing Carers^TM initiative

held leadership roles in our company in 2020. This represents 35% of our leadership team.

We are determined to increase the proportion of women in leadership positions and to promote a stronger sense of diversity and inclusion among our employees. This also includes learning how unconscious bias influences us in our daily working life. We also support awareness campaigns for female empowerment.

• Our approach to diversity and inclusion
• Women in leadership roles: Requirements and targets
• Promoting women leaders and talent
• Rooting out unconscious bias
• Networks to bolster diversity
• Healthy Women, Healthy Economies initiative

We are constantly working to optimize our production and cleaning processes in order to save water and minimize residues. We also carry out education campaigns, thus supporting local capacity-building activities.

• Our approach to water management
• Schistosomiasis health education project
• Our good deeds

We support initiatives and projects that aim to increase access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation within communities and health centers, to prevent transmission of diseases through new technologies and enhanced infrastructure.

• Our strategy for preventing and treating infectious diseases
• The schistosomiasis health education project

We are constantly working to optimize our production and cleaning processes in order to save water and minimize residues. By 2030, we want to ensure that residues of environmentally relevant trace substances in the wastewater of all production sites will be below the “no-effect” concentration.

• Our approach to water management
• Residues in wastewater

We want to minimize any negative influence we have on the water situation in the vicinity of our sites. Special requirements with regard to water management are placed upon our locations in areas where water is scarce. By 2025, we aim to decrease our water intensity footprint by 10% compared to 2019.

• Our approach to water management
• Our Merck Water Intensity Score

We will step up the purchase of electricity from renewable sources. By 2030, we are aiming to cover 80% of our electricity consumption with renewables.

• Our approach to taking climate action
• Buying renewable energy

We implement a variety of energy efficiency measures in order to decrease our energy footprint. We also offer a number of products that are more energy-efficient than conventional alternatives.

• Our approach to taking climate action
• Development of energy efficient building solutions
• Our approach to sustainable product design

million is the amount we invest in innovative technologies and transformational ideas through our M Ventures corporate venture capital fund.

We translate science and technology into internal innovation and external collaborations with the goal of having the power to change lives. We are constantly on the lookout for groundbreaking technological developments and trends. We facilitate innovation across our businesses and beyond our company’s current scope through our Innovation Center at our global headquarters in Germany, our China Innovation Hub and our Silicon Valley Innovation Hub in the United States.

• Our Group Strategy
• Our R&D approach
• Our approach to creating innovation
• The Future Insight Prize

of our Life Science products are greener alternatives to conventional solutions.

Our Life Science business sector develops solutions to make research and biotech production simpler, faster and more efficient, while our Performance Materials business sector focuses on energy-efficient solutions for the electronics market, for example semiconductor and display materials. Our Life Science business sector offers a range of tools for analyzing and minimizing product impacts in terms of materials used, energy and emissions, water, packaging, and innovation.

• Our approach to sustainable product design
• Our Green chemistry assessment tool

the number of participants in our employee networks around the globe.

Our goal is to further expand the diversity of our workforce and offer all our people equal opportunities for advancement. We form teams with a balanced age structure, diverse educational backgrounds and experience and create an international working environment. We are committed to creating an inclusive culture that reflects our values and enables employees to unleash their potential. We purposefully support multiple global and local employee networks focusing on different topics such as women or women in leadership, internationality, race and ethnicity, and LGBTQI+.

• Our approach to diversity and inclusion
• Networks to bolster diversity

We do not tolerate any business activities or relationships leading to violations of human rights. We conduct internal audits to assess whether the workplace requirements of our Human Rights Charter are observed at our sites and we raise the awareness of our employees through training.

• Our approach to human rights due diligence
• Our approach to responsible supply chains
• Our approach to responsibility in the mica supply chain
• Merck Modern Slavery Statement

Lost Time Injury Rate (LTIR) = workplace accidents resulting in missed days of work per one million man-hours.

We track workplace accidents resulting in missed days of work per one million man-hours (LTIR) on a Group-wide level, while aiming to keep this indicator as low as possible by implementing high safety standards. We are committed to respecting international social and labor standards set by the International Labour Organization. We also expect our suppliers to comply with our labor standards.

• Our approach to human rights due diligence
• Our commitment: Group-wide social and labor standards
• Our approach to employee health and safety
• Our approach to responsible supply chains

is the year by which we want to achieve climate neutrality.

At all our production sites, we meet a strict set of environmental regulations and continually adapt our processes to new regulatory requirements. Due to the growing scarcity of natural resources, we strive to use energy, water and materials as efficiently as possible.

• Our approach to environmental stewardship
• Our climate target
• Our waste management
• Our water management
• How we improve packaging and recycling

the percentage of net sales we spent on R&D in 2020.

Science is at the heart of everything we do. We conduct research and development (R&D) worldwide in order to develop new products and services designed to improve the quality of life of patients and satisfy the needs of our customers. Further optimizing the relevance and efficiency of our research and development activities is one of our top priorities. By providing financial support for research conducted outside our company and granting awards, we are also stimulating scientific progress of researchers worldwide.

• Our R&D approach
• Providing research grants and awards
• The Future Insight Prize

We have made sustainability an essential component of the company’s overall strategy and aim to ensure that all our businesses create positive value for society while avoiding the generation of subsequent costs for society. In 2020, we formulated new strategic sustainability targets with a ten- to twenty-year scope.

• Our strategic approach to sustainability
• Impact measurement with the Sustainable Business Value (SBV) method
• Our approach to sustainable product design

The amount by which we want to reduce our Water Intensity Score by 2025 (baseline: 2019).

In order to improve our water efficiency, we defined an intensity value – the “Merck Water Intensity Score”. It sets the water consumption of a site in relation to the local availability of water and the number of hours worked at the site. We also strive to utilize natural resources as efficiently as possible and prevent the generation of waste, for instance by developing new production processes or optimizing existing ones.

• Our water management
• Our waste management
• How we improve packaging and recycling

No significant incident-related spills were recorded at any of our production, research and warehouse sites Group-wide in 2020.

The safety of our plants, warehouses and processes is a key element of our environmental stewardship practices, allowing us to protect both our workforce and the people in the immediate vicinity of our sites. We employ strict safety standards for our production processes and for our chemical products. To document accidents and other incidents, we track the EHS (Environment, Health and Safety) Incident Rate. The indicator covers the number of workplace accidents as well as environmentally relevant incidents.

• Our approach to environmental stewardship
• Our approach to plant and process safety
• Our approach to chemical product safety
• Our approach to transport and warehouse safety
• Our approach to managing waste

of the Merck Waste Score by 2025 is what we want to achieve to reduce the environmental footprint of our waste (baseline: 2016).

We generally try to prevent or reduce the generation of waste, for instance by developing new production processes or optimizing existing ones. In addition, we are striving to use waste disposal pathways that are more environmentally sustainable such as recycling or incineration with energy recovery whenever possible. We support the circular economy approach.

• Our waste management
• Our approach to sustainable product design
• How we improve packaging and recycling

is the year we started reporting on sustainability aspects regarding our company.

Responsibility and transparency are integral parts of our corporate culture. They are two of our six company values. Sustainability is an essential component of our corporate strategy.

• Our strategic approach to sustainability
• Our approach to responsible governance
• Our sustainability reporting practices

By 2030, we want to reduce our direct Scope 1 and indirect Scope 2 emissions by 50% compared to 2020 and by 2040, we want to achieve climate neutrality. The 2030 goal is to be achieved through energy efficiency measures, the reduction of process-related emissions as well as the increased purchase of electricity from renewable sources.

• Our approach to taking climate action

are shared in the publicly available PAT-INFORMED database.

We support a reliable and transparent framework of intellectual property that allows sustainable investment in research and development for innovations to address global health challenges. Through our collaborative open innovation activities, we share access to our proprietary compound library for drug discovery to identify new potentially life-changing drugs.

• Our approach to open innovation
• Our Global Health Strategy
• Our approach to stakeholder dialogues

Through our public-private partnerships, we collaborate with health authorities in low- and middle-income countries to improve the diagnosis and management of non-communicable diseases, such as prediabetes and thyroid disorders. We manufacture some of our products directly in the regions where they are needed in order to build local capacity.

• Our Global Health Strategy
• Our approach to health awareness
• Our approach to pharmaceutical supply chains

We are actively involved in more than 65 partnerships to advance access to health in low- and middle-income countries.

We partner with a wide range of stakeholders, including international organizations, governments, NGOs, academic institutions, the private sector, and local communities to address global health challenges for the benefit of society and our company.

• Our approach to stakeholder dialogues
• Our alliances for health for all