Evaluating a company's impact (the case of Pfizer)

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Impaakt - stakeholder-powered sustainability.

This week’s read time: 3 minutes

You are reading Green Digest Impact, a weekly newsletter that provides in-depth analyses of companies’ environmental and social impact.

OUR APPROACH

Central to our narrative is the principle of double-materiality, which recognizes that a company's impact is twofold: it affects both the environment and society at large, and in turn, these external factors influence the company's financial and operational performance.

While traditional ESG assessments focus on the latter, we aim to examine companies' direct impacts on these factors. In pursuit of this, we introduce a unique scoring system that quantifies a company's impact.

The insights and analyses presented in Green Digest Impact are brought to you by a partnership between Green Digest and Impaakt, a Swiss-based impact data provider. Contact Impaakt here to explore how they can assist you.

SPONSORED BY IMPAAKT

Is your company ready for the CSRD?

Is your company ready for the CSRD? Impaakt makes it effortless to manage sustainability data, engage stakeholders, and deliver a CSRD-compliant report through its intuitive platform. Impaakt’s comprehensive solution simplifies the process by providing a central platform to:

• Efficiently collect and manage data for accuracy and transparency.

• Gather stakeholder insights and conduct double materiality assessments.

• Track and benchmark sustainability progress for continuous improvement.

Learn more or get in touch.

THIS WEEK’S COMPANY

Pfizer

This week we dive deep into Pfizer’s environmental and social impact.

With a history spanning over 170 years, Pfizer is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Some interesting facts:

• Pfizer was founded by cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart, both of whom were German immigrants. They started the company with a $2,500 loan from Charles Pfizer’s father.

• Viagra, originally researched for treating hypertension and angina, was discovered to have the side effect of improving erectile dysfunction. This unexpected discovery led to one of Pfizer’s most famous products.

COMPANY’S IMPACT

Pfizer’s overall impact score

Pfizer has a general impact score of +2.08 (on a scale from -5 to +5). Its impact is spread across 10 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 8 topics, split between positive and negative analyses.

In the socio-economic sphere,

Pfizer holds 9% of the world's pharmaceutical drug market (latest data from 2022). The company’s innovative medicines and vaccines play a pivotal role in enhancing patient outcomes and public health in over 181 countries. Pfizer supplies over 50 billion doses of medicines and vaccines annually, benefiting an estimated 1.3 billion people worldwide. Since 1998, Pfizer has donated more than 1 billion doses of antibiotic medication to international efforts to abolish trachoma (endemic in 42 countries). Studies found that the global prevalence of the disease has since decreased by an estimated 92%.

Pfizer's R&D program has also led to breakthrough medicines for treating cancer, arthritis, COVID-19, diabetes, and other diseases. In 2020, the company developed the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, significantly contributing to the containment and mitigation of the COVID-19 virus. It employs 88,000 people (2023) and provides salaries above the industry and country average. It has also achieved gender parity (with over 40% women inclusion as per ILO standards) at all levels, except for the board of directors.

On the flip side, Pfizer is one of the biggest spenders on lobbying regarding drug pricing. Its drug Eliquis (one of the world's best-selling drugs) is more expensive than its competitors, and the company prevented two already approved Eliquis generics from coming to market. Moreover, its most well-known drug, Viagra, is responsible for thousands of fatalities due to its side effects. The company has also been fined multiple times for anti-competitive practices, bribery, and illegal price-hiking.

Environmentally,

Pfizer emits over 5.4 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent annually (2023), equal to the emissions of over 1 million homes’ electricity use for a year. The company also discharges 28.1 million m³ of wastewater and consumes 3.8 million m³ of water annually, 44% in high or extremely high water-stressed areas. Additionally, Pfizer generates approximately 114,800 tonnes of hazardous and non-hazardous waste and 24,500 tonnes of end-of-life waste from pharmaceutical packaging every year.

_{*The impact score is current as of July 2024 and may be subject to changes as it is continuously updated.
**You can find details about the scoring methodology here and the information sources here.}

ESG VS IMPACT SCORE

What is Pfizer’s ESG rating?

For comparison, Pfizer has an A rating in MSCI's ESG evaluation.

However, ESG Ratings from MSCI ESG Research are designed to measure a company’s resilience to financially material ESG risks and they provide a window into one facet of risk to financial performance. They measure how effectively companies manage ESG risks, not their impact on these factors.

SCORES BY SDG

Pfizer’s impact scores by SDG

Now, back to Pfizer’s impact score:

Positively (and by weight), the company scores the highest in Good Health and Well-being SDG (+2.39), followed by Partnership for the Goals (+2.60), and Gender Equality (+0.68).

Negatively, the company scores the worst in Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions SDG (-3.04), followed by Responsible Consumption and Production (-2.99), and Climate Action (-3.43).

*the analysis takes into account the weight of the SDGs

Pfizer also positively and negatively influences one SDG (3 - Good Health and Well-being). Positively, because its products contribute significantly to improving people’s health. Negatively, because some if its products have side effects.

CONCLUSION

Final words

So, Pfizer’s key social and environmental impact lies in …

its role in providing medicines and vaccines that improve billions of people’s health in 181 countries. Its R&D programs have led to breakthrough medicines that help treat diseases such as cancer, arthritis, COVID-19, diabetes, and many more. Additionally, the company provides tens of thousands of jobs and pays billions in taxes.

On the contrary, Pfizer has a negative impact through its emissions, water use and discharge, and waste production. The company has also been involved in anti-competitive practices, bribery, and illegal price-hiking, and is responsible for thousands of fatalities due to some of its products’ side effects.

Its positive +2.08 score is a balance of all of these factors and topics.

If you’d like to delve deeper into Pfizer’s impact, you can explore it here.

Next week, we will analyze the impact of the company whose drinks we have all likely tasted, Coca-Cola. 🥤

If you'd like to learn more about the scoring methodology, you can do so here.

Do you have a specific company you'd like us to cover? Send your suggestions to [email protected]