ALTIS Università Cattolica, CERISMAS, BCG and Quantis have started a collaboration with the aim of investigating the propensity of Italian healthcare companies to integrate elements of socio-environmental sustainability into their strategies. The survey was conducted through 3 methods: interviews with a sample of leaders of Italian healthcare companies; a questionnaire addressed to 55 companies in the sector to collect their perceptions; an analysis of the sustainability reports of 14 companies in the sector. It emerges that in Italy interest in the topic is strong and widespread, almost 80% of the healthcare companies interviewed say they have defined a sustainability strategy or have taken steps to develop it.
The results of the research highlight a growing level of awareness among companies with respect to social and environmental concerns, with 36% of companies having already formulated a clear and articulated social and environmental sustainability strategy and a further 42% actively engaged in defining their sustainability plans. The research also shows a tendency to explore social and environmental initiatives that sees, for example, 60% of companies currently engaged in the implementation or experimentation of initiatives for the benefit of patients and customers.
"This social commitment on the part of health and social care companies is not surprising, as they see taking care of patients and their needs as their 'core business'; the research, however, shows significant attention to the assessment of social needs through initiatives to listen to community subjects and community building, aimed at supporting health equity, i.e. giving equal opportunities for well-being regardless of social differences," says Giuliana Monolo, researcher at CERIMAS.
The allocation of resources for future investments also reflects a growing attention to the issue, with 73% of companies reporting that they adopt sustainability criteria in making this type of decision, although, in most cases, not in a systematic way. The analysis of the sample of non-financial statements confirmed that six of the main Italian pharmaceutical companies in 2021 reported an average intensity of Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions of around 37 tons of CO2 equivalent for every million euros of turnover (CO2e/€M), well below the global value of 54 tons of CO2e/€M recorded in 2015. Just as the percentage of recycled water varies from 12% to 29%, compared to a global figure of 27%.
"Although the results of the study clearly demonstrate a significant commitment by companies to adopting sustainable practices, it still reveals an immature approach: a limited number of companies measure their sustainability goals according to recognized international standards and by preparing a figure dedicated to ESG," explains Alessandra Catozzella, Partner at BCG.
In fact, 90% of companies say they use at least one indicator to monitor their environmental impact, however, there is a need for wider and more structured adoption to better promote individual sustainability initiatives. In recent years, attention to the well-being of internal stakeholders has also increased. Examples of widely adopted initiatives include training and staff development activities (adopted by 89% of the companies interviewed) and activities aimed at ensuring health and safety at work (83%).
In the reconciliation of private and work life, there are more discrepancies, especially between health and social care companies, which are objectively more in difficulty on this front also due to the "deskless" nature of the activity (i.e. that it does not involve office work, but direct contact with the public), as well as more exposed to stress/risk factors than other sectors.
This declination of sustainability towards employees is fundamental, as underlined by the data collected by BCG, for which 70% of European workers, when choosing a new job, put the work-life balance at the top of the priority scale.
To facilitate this process of spreading the "culture of sustainability", it is necessary to promote a systematic and structured approach that starts from the definition of clear, concrete and measurable objectives, to arrive at the measurement and reporting of the impacts generated, pooling the best experiences in the area. The adoption of sustainable practices in the healthcare sector is not yet widespread in an organic way, as is evident mainly in three areas:
- Definition and monitoring of objectives. Just over half of the responding companies have set concrete socio-environmental targets, and only 8% of these have defined sustainability goals recognized according to intentional standards, while none to date has equipped itself for the upcoming standards on the Nature front (SBTn and TNFD) that will be introduced in 2023.
- Incentives. One way to achieve this is to include sustainability goals within managers' incentive system, a strategy that only 3 out of 10 of the companies surveyed currently adopt.
- Governance and management. Only a third of respondents have created a committee with responsibility for sustainability and just under half have an organisational unit dedicated to sustainability issues. On this aspect, the most advanced sectors are pharmaceuticals and medical technologies, while it seems to be of lower priority for hospital and social health actors.
"To facilitate the transition to more sustainable business models, an increasingly structured approach is needed in the healthcare sector, starting from the definition of concrete objectives to be achieved in the medium to long term. While acknowledging the natural social role of healthcare companies, they are not exempt from trying to improve their impact on the natural environment and society as a whole," explains Matteo Pedrini, Full Professor of Corporate Strategy at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
The adoption of ESG parameters and the transition to sustainable practices clearly bring benefits at the corporate level, but also at the environmental, human and social level. For this reason, the imperative is even more urgent for healthcare companies. Sustaining such a change requires numerous resources as well as substantial changes in business operating models, but it must not be slowed down by organizational or implementation limitations
In a world where economic growth is a primary objective, it is now necessary to look at environmental and social sustainability as a new priority. The healthcare sector is no exception and, in addition to the goal of ensuring health and well-being for the entire population, it is now called upon to take responsible action towards its stakeholders and the environment. The adoption of sustainable practices is also an essential requirement in companies' relationships with suppliers and partners: up to 11% of pharmaceutical tenders in the top 5 European countries include ESG requirements. Recent public estimates predict that emissions related to hospital cooling systems will increase 4 times by 2040, while, on the social front, according to World Bank and World Health Organization data, 100 million people globally are reduced to poverty every year due to the health costs incurred. Our country is no exception: there are about 9 million citizens with difficulty accessing care; Waiting times for visits and diagnostic tests increased by 25% in the three-year period 2014-2017, becoming the main reason for dissatisfaction with the National Health System in 2021.