July 27th, 2010

Sustainability in Pharma: Take Aways

I joined my partner, Beth, last night as she spoke at Sustainability in the Pharmaceutical Industry, along with representatives from Merck, Sanofi-Aventis and our client, Coleman Bigelow, from Johnson & Johnson. There were over 100 people in the room for another great turnout by FDU’s Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, along with Net Impact NJ Chapter and other partnering organizations.

The insights were many, and the networking good — we saw many old friends and met some new ones. Some of the take aways included:

• The panelists agreed that prevention and wellness have become important trends in pharma CSR/sustainability.
• Maggie Kohn, Merck:  indicated that her team started with too many metrics; now they measure fewer, more meaningful things. At SDialogue, we recognize this as a best practice.
• Ms. Kohn also informed the crowd that people questioned pharma when it came to CSR in recent years, partly because pharma has traditionally been so secretive.  Now Merck tries hard to be more open and transparent.
• Beth covered our top 7 CSR practices to a rapt, note-taking crowd.
• Coleman, of J&J, stated that consultants play a huge role in CSR and then mentioned his work with us – thanks Coleman!
• Coleman also indicated the significant challenge he faces, that we also know many other large companies have faced, to co-ordinate various departments on CSR initiatives, including J&J’s corporate, EHS & communications teams.
• Peter Lalli, Sanofi-Aventis talked about the additional challenges of having a foreign parent,  with the main CSR division based at the Paris HQ, which reports to SA’s CEO, and works cross functionally. There’s also a smaller team in the U.S.