[April 18, 2011] China, as a rapidly growing emerging economy, should give equal attention to the demand of offspring development while meeting the ever-increasing demand of its 1.3 billion people. Undoubtedly, sustainable development is an extremely challenging task we are facing. The products provided by pharmaceutical enterprises are irreplaceable in safeguarding public health. Healthy people are essential for the sustainable development of society. Besides, it also faces issues such as environmental protection, social resistibility and occupational health, etc. Therefore, in terms of sustainable development, pharmaceutical enterprises should assume more important duty compared with other sectors. At the meeting of the 14th Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Group Meeting held by R&D-based Pharmaceutical Association Committee under China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI) (RDPAC), the representatives from R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises who attended the meeting exchanged the concepts and experience in sustainable development to each other and hoped to further deepen the impelling of sustainable development strategy in China.
Mr. Weng Fuyi, special adviser of EHS group, said, "The main content of sustainable development is about economic, ecological and social sustainable development, in which economic sustainability is the foundation, ecological sustainability is the condition and social sustainability is the purpose. The main content of social sustainable development is to improve the mankind’s quality of life and level of health. The efforts of R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises in sustainable development should run through the aforesaid three aspects and finally translate them into “people-oriented”. As a rule, the focus should be placed on protecting ecological environment and safeguarding occupational health.”
The concept of sustainable development should run through various links of business operation
In terms of economy, many R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises have fully penetrated the sustainable development concept into development strategy, evaluated and adjusted sustainable planning in operation and actively tap the potential for implementation of sustainable development strategy in various links of business operation. For instance, reduction of garbage dump and chemical synthesis procedures has been an important goal of quite a few pharmaceutical enterprises at the R&D stage, which has carried out the concept of sustainable development from the source; continuously improve efficiency and use clean energy in production link so as to reduce the impacts upon the environment; the efforts of R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises even include use of office supplies made by environment-friendly renewable materials and purchase of clean energy vehicles. The close integration of various details during the sustainability and operation process has ensured the realization of sustainable development. To break away from actual operation, the sustainable development is only a futile talk.
“Actually, in terms of sustainable development, we also pursue full-chain monitoring, not only abide by the principle of sustainable development, but also call for the third party to do so,” Abbott China said, “we require that all the third party contractors should sign our commercial norm of behavior and receive training in ethical codes and compliance.” USA Johnson & Johnson Group also put forward its will to strengthen its cooperation with the third party suppliers that support sustainable development in its 2015 plan on its health future.
Enterprises should continuously tap the potential of enterprises in protection of ecological environment
Besides, in terms of ecological sustainable development, R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises have made brilliant achievements. Presently, China is a country with the most carbon dioxide emissions in the world and also a nation with the most population and meager per-capita resource. Based on China’s conditions, R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises have mostly focused their environmental protection work on climatic change, water source utilization and product management. Since 2006, the plants of Abbott Shanghai have reduced the water consumption by 31%; electric energy of 23,287kW has been replaced by new type wind/solar hybrid system. MSD, another member company of RDPAC is making use of engineering principle and chemical innovation and constantly reducing the consumption of raw materials, energy and water. “Moreover, in aspect of reclaiming insulation vaccine transportation vessels and reducing garbage landfill, MSD is in the forefront of the sector. We are progressively giving up PVC plastic and changing into packing material made by recyclable material, which allows us to reduce 400,000 pounds of trash every year," said Ding Hanzhang, plant manager of Hangzhou MSD Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
People oriented, concern about health
“Finally, whether economic sustainability or ecological sustainability, it should be implemented to human health ultimately. The essence of development is “people oriented”. Mr. Weng Fuyi stated. For the public, R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises have been constantly launching innovative products and services to help people address challenges to sickness while keeping help the public improve the health level by means of their skill and knowledge in health sector. For example, the Neonatal Resuscitation Project (NRP) of China jointly launched by Johnson & Johnson, Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China and American Academy of Pediatrics has been committing itself to solving neonatal asphyxia problem. Since the second half of 2004 when it was launched, 20,000 new-born children have been rescued on average per annum. For its own employees, majority of R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises have their health plan targeted to employees. In Johnson & Johnson, the company will continuously monitor the incidence of heart disease and hypertension and help the employees have a more healthy life. From 2006 to 2009, the quantity of “low risk” employees inside the company has achieved growth for 3 consecutive years while the number of “high risk” employees has been on the decline. “Pfizer and Novo Nordisk have launched the program to help employees quit smoking.” One employee serving the member company of RDPAC said, “Such programs to help employees’ healthy life are numerous in R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises. The requirements and programs in occupational protection, occupational disease and other aspects related to production are more available. The injection of capital can make employees come to work happily and go home healthily rather than falling upon at their working posts, which is what R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises are willing to see.”
"R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises have accumulated a lot of experience in sustainable development aspect. Many projects targeted to Chinahave good reference to other enterprises," Mr. Zhuo Yongqing, executive president of RDPAC said, "in fact, the state places human-oriented and sustainable development in a prominent position while determining the development indicator of the 12th Five-year plan. For the time being, the cost input for enterprises to implement sustainable development strategy is huge, but as R&D-based pharmaceutical enterprises, we should shoulder more responsibilities and become pace-setters of sustainable development as we are convinced that this is an all-win strategy."
