Pfizer’s Social Impact & Sustainability Efforts

We hire, grow, and empower diverse talent by partnering with external organizations that provide rich engagement opportunities with people of diverse backgrounds and experiences. This included joining Tent’s Coalition for Refugees and hiring over 100 refugees in 2022 with an expanded, aspirational goal of hiring 500 qualified refugees in the United States in the next three years. We are a Valuable500 member company, and our CEO signed the Disability:IN letter, committing to help drive lasting change for the 1.3 billion people living with a disability around the world. We work with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) to broaden our talent pipeline. For our own employees' development, we are partnering with McKinsey's Connected Leaders Academy for Black, Hispanic, and Asian leaders' participation.

Our opportunity parity strategy represents our commitment to increase diversity.  

In 2019, we announced representation goals by 2025 of 47 percent for women (globally) and 32 percent for minorities (U.S.) in Vice President (VP) roles and above. 

Results so far: 
• Representation of women at the VP level and above in 2020 was 38 percent globally (up 5 percent from 2019). 
• Representation of minorities in the U.S. at the VP level and above in 2020 was 22 percent (up 2 percent from 2019).

In November 2021, Pfizer launched the Institute of Translational Equitable Medicine, or ITEM, under the Office of the Chief Medical Officer. Our vision for ITEM is to achieve health equity by preventing, treating, and identifying disease drivers that disproportionately impact underserved and minority populations nationally and globally. We believe there are gaps in applying scientific knowledge to diseases, and inefficiencies in recognizing unmet clinical needs that ought to inform fundamental research. Our goal is to use data to help us understand the drivers of health inequities, and how our scientific discoveries can meet the needs of underrepresented and minority patients.

Recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis, Pfizer has established a science-based target to achieve the Net-Zero Standard by 2040. This standard urges long-term action to reduce company emissions by 95% and value chain emissions by 90%. Pfizer aims to achieve Net Zero by 2040 - 10 years earlier than the expectations of the standard.

In March 2020, Pfizer launched a $1.25 billion “Sustainability Bond”, the first to be issued by a biopharmaceutical company. Proceeds from the bond will help manage our environmental impact, strengthen healthcare systems and manage our social impact, by supporting increased patient access to Pfizer’s medicines and vaccines, especially among underserved populations.

Pfizer is finding innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment during the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and is continuously "greening" the process. In particular, we leverage our Green Chemistry and Biotechnology program to advance scientific innovation – our core strength – to help develop processes that are more sustainable, environmentally sound and cost-effective.

Through our Green Chemistry initiative, which is grounded in Paul Anastas and John Warner's 12 Principles of Green Chemistry, we are dedicated to promoting the selection and use of environmentally preferable chemicals, eliminating waste and conserving energy.

We offer patient assistance and donation programs when insurance or reimbursement systems fail to provide affordable access to our medicines. And, building on our 30-year legacy of experience manufacturing biologics, our robust portfolio of biosimilars offers additional treatments at potentially lower costs.

Since 2019, Pfizer has been working with Zipline to develop new drone technology for delivering medicines to remote communities around the world. Together with Zipline and its other partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gavi Alliance, and the UPS Foundation, we’re working to help support the Government of Ghana in establishing a medical drone delivery system to ensure access to crucial health products in some of the nation’s most rural areas. This delivery system highlights the power of public-private partnerships to maximize impact.

The Pfizer Multicultural Health Equity Collective (MHEC) focuses on helping to improve health equity across ethnic groups and other underrepresented communities facing significant health disparities.

An Accord for a Healthier World is a first-of-its-kind initiative to enable sustained, equitable access to high-quality, safe, and effective medicines and vaccines with the potential to improve the health of 1.2 billion people living in lower-income countries around the world. 

Through the Accord, we have committed to provide Pfizer’s patent-protected medicines and vaccines available in the U.S. or European Union on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries around the world. By doing so, we aim to provide breakthrough prevention and treatment options for millions of people impacted by deadly infectious diseases like COVID-19 and pneumonia, as well as certain cancers and rare and inflammatory diseases. As we launch new medicines and vaccines, those products will also be included in the Accord portfolio on a not-for-profit basis.