How life sciences companies are measuring their ESG impact

In this podcast, Barend and Sonja cover a lot of territory. Sonja shares her experience about how companies can make better decisions by embracing non-financial, non-traditional metrics and how the measurement of Impact – to people, planet, and society – has evolved from something ill-defined, to multiple clear frameworks of impact measurement in monetary terms.

Confidence in impact measurement has increased as it has been proven to work, and the argument has moved on from the nitty gritty of excel sheet constructions to the implications of the impact valuation results themselves. Now it’s possible to go beyond stories to underpin work with real data and insight, stakeholder engagement is also easier – ultimately leading to more powerful, far-reaching transformation.

Sonja drills down into the situation in her industry to talk about how companies are having to show the social impact of their medicines, and how this can expand into broader questions of willingness to pay and the trade-offs. On a personal level, she speaks about the Novartis Impact Summit which she has been instrumental in organizing.

The discussion then closes with a look at global use cases, banking for impact and those few gaps in Impact measurement that will have to be addressed in the next five years.

Key takeaways:

• From not being measured at all, now there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of sustainability metrics.
• Confidence in sustainability metrics has increased.
• Sustainability impact data make it increasingly possible to engage stakeholders in potentially transformative conversations.
• Many innovative sustainable products often need awareness raising around them.
• Sustainability metrics should help advance business, instead of being “nice-to-have”.

The views of third parties expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of the global EY organization or its member firms. Moreover, they should be seen in the context of the time they were made.

For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available. Read the transcript.