Pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has much to shout about but its report is disappointingly sterile

Not even the fancy infographics that pepper this report from Sanofi can save us from a reading experience that is essentially boring. Dry, monotonous and slightly repetitive, this report leaves the reader wondering if Sanofi has invented a drug to help you stay awake while you read. Devoid of all but a few case studies, external commentary, or anything remotely exciting, at 116 pages, this report is at least a third too long.

In all other respects, it might be considered a perfect report. It is clinical in its execution of the GRI reporting framework and takes you through page after page of perfectly crafted narrative, playing by the rules, covering all bases expertly. However, with a value chain described as a series of challenges, to give us a sense of how tough responsibility really is, this report contains the word “challenge” no fewer than 60 times, and the word “opportunity” only about 30 times. Perhaps that’s what gives this report a rather pessimistic tone, despite some of the real progress that the company is making.

Material issues are presented across the spectrum of the sustainability landscape, in symmetrical balance. Data is clearly presented visually and nuggets of context provide background on prevalent diseases such as polio, malaria, diabetes and dengue fever while a host of data sheets for download that are linked from the report offer additional information.

Great for access

The tragedy of this report is that the real achievements of Sanofi get lost among the clutter. You have to be careful not to miss the fact that Sanofi has acess to 260 healthcare programmes in more than 70 countries worldwide reaching 177 million people. That’s an extraordinary achievement. The report links to a downloadable 31-page fact sheet with details of these programmes in countries ranging from the Netherlands to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan to Egypt and through China, Columbia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines and more.

These are the stories that would have been better told in the CSR Report, demonstrating the most important social mission of this healthcare company: making medicine available, affordable and teaching patients and healthcare providers how to cope with disease. Instead, the report remains, in the main, at the level of rhetoric and mostly high-level references. Just 11 pages out of 116 are devoted to patient support. By contrast, 20 pages are devoted to environmental issues, which, Sanofi admits, were far less important (“deprioritised”) in feedback from Sanofi’s stakeholders.

Meticulous transparency

Sanofi displays meticulous transparency in performance disclosures (four pages of performance indicators provide three years of data across tens of metrics), and, in each section of the report, a clear set of targets and related progress are provided. It all seems to tie up. Performance across measurable targets for emissions, water and safety is all positive. In other target areas, which are more flexible, qualitative rather than quantitative, similar progress is achieved.

For example, in the people section, there is a target to “promote gender balance”. The performance data shows that women in senior leadership increased by 2%, on the executive committee by 6% and on the board by 5% showing that even with such a fluid target, the company delivered. In some cases, the targets feel a little light, for example, “develop our knowledge of pharmaceuticals’ impact in the environment”.

Progress is noted as “ongoing” with progress described as taking part in scientific research programmes. How an assessment can be made as to whether this target was actually achieved or how it will be achieved in the future is not clear.

Reflecting progress

The Sanofi report addresses all the issues we might expect of a leading pharmaceuticals player. Access to medicines, pharmacovigilance, medical waste, bioethics, clinical trials, business ethics and anti-corruption, supply chain auditing, counterfeit drugs and more all find a place in this report, and the scale and breadth of Sanofi’s activities is impressive.

A strong focus on children’s rights and programmes to improve access for children is well noted, including an NGO that Sanofi established to support the children of employees gain access to healthcare. It’s not surprising that Sanofi is a well-respected responsibility leader among pharma peers. It’s just a shame that the company’s reporting fails to break out of the laboratory and deliver a spark of excitement and optimism

Snapshot:

Follows GRI? GRI B+ GRI checked

Assured? Yes

Materiality analysis? Yes

Goals? Yes

Targets? Yes

Stakeholder input? No

Seeks feedback? Yes

Key strengths? Yes, online

Chief weakness? Boring

Pleasant surprise? Great hyperlinks to all related information

CR report review  CR Reporting  Sanofi 

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