Society

Over and above our primary role as an innovative healthcare business, we also have a long heritage of wider community involvement – in humanitarian and social projects centered mainly in least Developed countries, and through our support for scientific research, development opportunities for young scientists and contemporary music and arts. We encourage our employees to play a part in the community too, and support their efforts to do this.

We focus our energies on areas in which we can add unique value. We gauge our success solely on the impact of the projects we support, not on their expense or publicity value. Experience shows that, even with modest resources, jointly developed industry–community partnerships can often achieve greater and more lasting effects than many showcase projects can.

Traditionally, we have not publicised our corporate giving activities in terms of monetary amounts, although we now report briefly on our philanthropic activities.

We aim to be a responsible corporate citizen in every country where we do business. We realise that our operations have environmental effects and impact society at the local, national and international level. We therefore strive to meet the highest standards of environmental and social responsibility and to respect local customs and practices.

Besides creating and maintaining employment opportunities and supporting local communities through our taxes, we are an active corporate citizen in every community that is home to a Roche company. We encourage and, whenever possible, assist employees who want to get actively involved in their communities, while leaving it entirely up to our employees to decide what sort of volunteer service they wish to perform. By delegating responsibility for local activities to our affiliates, we try to be as responsive as possible to diverse cultural needs.

And there is no question that we have an important responsibility to our employees and therefore have to make them a focus of our sustainability strategy. Our employment policies and the commitments we make as an employer on the basis of those policies are a reflection of how seriously we take this responsibility.