Our corporate social responsibility approach embraces the fact that the businesses across our Group face many different challenges; social, environmental and economic, across a diverse geographic base. We have a support structure in place which helps our individual businesses to develop and take ownership of corporate social responsibility programmes appropriate to local circumstances within a consistent Alliance Boots framework.
We have a single unified corporate social responsibility framework across our Health & Beauty Division.
The strength of the Boots brand rests on the trust it inspires in its customers.
Ultimately, the breadth of corporate social responsibility activities adopted throughout Boots is one of the means by which trust is both demonstrated and maintained. The clarity of our structure enables us to be certain about how we meet our corporate social responsibility performance targets and plan to keep our promises.
Our aim is to provide our customers with excellent quality products they can believe in, whether we are selling our own brands or those of other manufacturers. Of equal importance is the way these products are made, where the materials are sourced and the impact of their manufacture and transport. In all these areas, we are working with a wide range of partners to improve the ‘socially responsible performance’ and effectiveness of the products we sell.
Our extensive pharmaceutical wholesale network enables us to provide high levels of service and support on a daily basis to pharmacies, doctors, health centres and hospitals across many countries, whilst at the same time helping them to manage costs and gain a competitive edge.
As a healthcare provider, we have an overriding passion and commitment to serve the communities in which we operate, enabling people needing medicines, which are often critical for them, to obtain them quickly and reliably. Our businesses provide high core service levels to pharmacists and patients in terms of frequency of delivery during the day, product availability, delivery accuracy, timeliness and reliability at competitive prices. Through our network we are proud to help improve the quality of life of patients in the countries in which we operate.
All our principal businesses have established programmes covering our four main corporate social responsibility areas and each has its own corporate social responsibility performance scorecard. This provides the basis for setting targets which the corporate social responsibility teams in the businesses are responsible for delivering.
Contract Manufacturing
Alliance Boots also manufactures healthcare, cosmetic and toiletry products in factories in the UK, France and Germany, and through our associate in Poland.
Each manufacturing facility has its own corporate social responsibility representative and a process in place to share best practice and we are always seeking to continue to reduce the environmental impact of our operations.
Associates and joint ventures
In addition, many of our associates and joint ventures support a CSR programme consistent with the Alliance Boots CSR framework. Several of the activities and initiatives undertaken by our associates Alliance Healthcare Italia and Alliance Healthcare Portugal are described within this report.
In China, we established a joint venture with Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals Corporation in 2008. The business promotes a strong sense of integrity within its corporate culture and strives to improve ethical awareness.
Our associate Galenica includes a chapter on sustainability in its annual report, available on the company website, www.galenica.com. In the report, Galenica describes its understanding of social and environmental responsibility and how it exercises this responsibly. Convinced that forward-looking and responsible actions contribute substantially to the company’s long-term success and have an impact in all areas, Galenica pursues an integrated approach to sustainability.