UN SDGs

As a global healthcare company, we are committed to supporting the SDGs in line with our business strategy;
in particular SDG3, which aims at ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all.

Flip the cards and learn more about our activities to support the goals.

See all goals

Goal 3

Good health and wellbeing

Improving global access to healthcare

Roche is playing a leading role in an initiative which brings together more than 20 leading biopharmaceutical companies along with the World Bank and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). The Access Accelerated Initiative was launched in 2017 and focuses on improving access to treatments for non-communicable diseases, such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. In doing so, we contribute to the SDGs to reduce deaths from NCDs by a third by 2030.

Enabling sustainable healthcare funding

We have developed a number of pricing solutions, such as Personalised Reimbursement Models (PRM), which enable pricing according to the value the medicine brings in different indications, and International Differential Pricing, which sets the price of a medicine according to a country’s economic situation. One example of how this hurdle has been overcome is Roche’s collaboration with private insurance companies in countries where public coverage may not be adequate. PRM Story

Quality healthcare for the most vulnerable

Roche has initiated the world's largest infant HIV testing programme featuring a dried blood sampling diagnostic technique. This overcomes challenges in countries with the greatest disease burden and the least resources. Partnering to combat HIV infections in children with organisations such as UNAIDS and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, we bring quality healthcare to the most vulnerable. Over seven million infants have been tested for HIV, thus giving many more children the chance to live a healthy life. Know more about this programme

Goal 4

Quality education

Training talents to shape the future

An example of one of Roche’s longer partnerships in this area is the collaboration with Schweizer Jugend forscht, a 50-year-old foundation that focuses on identifying potential in young scientists and inspiring innovation. Roche was the founding sponsor for the organisation’s signature think tank programme, the International Swiss Talent Forum, which brings together 70 young people from around the world to address current global issues. In 2017, the Forum hosted students from 19 nations and focused on the theme of ‘Fostering the next entrepreneur’.

Goal 5

Gender Equality

More women in leadership positions than ever before

Gender equality is not only a basic right but also enrichment for both society and companies. Roche's objectives include fostering equal opportunities, helping women reach leadership positions, and promoting flexible models for balancing family and career. At Roche today we have more women in leadership positions than ever before. We've steadily increased the percentage of women in senior leadership positions from 13% in 2009 to 28% in 2017, and have set ourselves the goal of increasing this rate to 29% by 2020.

Goal 6

Clear Water and Sanitation

Managing limited water resources

In 2017, for the first time, Roche was identified as a global leader for its actions to manage water more sustainably. Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the not-for-profit global environmental disclosure platform, awarded Roche a position on this year’s Water A List.
More information on CDP

Goal 7

Affordable and clean energy

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy

At our Diagnostics site in Tucson, US, we have established a 20-year-term agreement with the local utility provider. This will allow our local site to be 100% solar-powered using renewable energy from the utility provider. There will be considerable environmental benefits associated with this initiative, including an expected 90% reduction in CO2 emissions from our Tucson site over a four year period starting in 2015.

Goal 8

Decent work and economic growth

Building the future

Roche invested CHF 290 million in an IT Innovation Center in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland, thereby initiating the site's development into one of the group's IT innovation hubs. Roche also opened a new Learning Center in Kaiseraugst. It offers leading-edge facilities for trainees and a state-of-the-art school laboratory, the first of its kind in Switzerland. Over the next 10 years, Roche will invest CHF 3 billion in Basel, including in the construction of a research and development centre for 1,900 employees.

Goal 9

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

A structure built for innovation

Roche has massively invested in R&D, now totalling over CHF 10 billion in 2017. We are among the top 10 R&D investors worldwide. Our investment translates into 72 investigational medicines in our pipeline, all being tested in hundreds of early - and late - stage clinical trials. In the last two years, we have had an unprecedented number of six medicines launched.

Goal 12

Responsible consumption and production

Less waste, more recycling

Roche’s Genentech site in South San Francisco collaborated with the City of South San Francisco and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reassess whether specific streams of wastewater from biotechnology production processes that required collection could instead be sent to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Following this collaboration, the South San Francisco site was able to reduce the 2017 wastewater volume collected from 246 m3 to 60 m3 lessening CO2 emissions from transportation and off-site treatment.

Goal 13

Climate action

Minimising our environmental footprint

In 2016, we reached our eco-balance goal (10% reduction compared to 2014). Since then, we have aimed to reduce our eco-balance goal by a further 2% each year. Our improvements in terms of decreasing energy consumption, air emissions and the volume of water consumed, as well as in reducing the weight of chemical waste, led to a further improvement of 8.7% in 2017 compared to 2016. We achieved these results despite growing production capacities and additional buildings across sites.

Goal 16

Peace, Justice and strong institutions

Meeting high standards of business ethics

Roche depends on a network of about 1,000 business critical suppliers and service providers. In addition to ensuring compliance with quality standard, we also expect them to adhere to high principles as well as mitigate risk and ensure business continuity. These principles are covered in our Roche Supplier Code of Conduct, which all suppliers are required to adhere to. Because we see our suppliers as partners, we go beyond the standard concept of audits by conducting ‘supplier sustainability assurance visits’ aiming to build trust and add value. In 2017, we made 156 visits around the world.

Goal 17

Partnerships for the goals

Improving healthcare facilities

The Blue Tree Programme in India is a unique cancer patient support initiative tailored to address the multiple hurdles that patients experience during the course of their treatment – primarily around diagnosis, affordability and adherence. In 2017, the project supported over 4,000 patients. Roche partnered with more than 750 doctors enabling access to treatment across 300 cancer centres in India. Patients on the programmes have shown a 40% increase in therapy adherence rates.