We invested more than 60% of our net profits in social and environmental causes
Our purpose of making a positive impact in society is real, and in 2021 we invested more than 60% of our net profits in social and environmental causes. As our Sustainability Report sets out, we reinvested the majority of our profits in various projects aimed at fostering equal opportunities for people in vulnerable situations, as well as projects aimed at protecting the planet. And the amount of profit invested represent a 53.2% rise in comparison with 2020.
Among the main projects in which we invested our profits in 2021, it’s worth highlighting the healthy menus supplied in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area to people in an extreme situation of vulnerability. These meals, elaborated with food grown in biodynamic urban social vegetable gardens using a permaculture model, aim to promote a green, sustainable and agroecological city model. We also support boys and girls at risk of social exclusion through music education programs. These are aimed at preventing school dropout and enhance the childrens’ educational, cultural, and emotional development.
As Mario Rovirosa, Ferrer's CEO, explained, the company has set its profit margin “at less than a half compared to the other companies in the sector”. The purpose is to “reinvest in initiatives with a social and environmental impact to create a fairer and more egalitarian society”. Likewise, Mario asserted that the company has been working for years on its transformation towards being a “positive impact organization”. “We know we still have a long way to go, but we want to be promoters of a new way of doing business and approaching the world because we believe that our activity as a pharmaceutical company must create more social and environmental value than it consumes”, Rovirosa stated.
As such, Ferrer’s entire strategy is related to people and the development of their talent, the protection of the planet and the struggle for a fairer and more egalitarian society.
As a result of the work completed in 2021, in early 2022 Ferrer also became the first Spanish pharmaceutical laboratory to enter the B Corp community, the company association aimed at building a more inclusive and sustainable economy. In the certification process carried out by B Lab Spain, Ferrer was highly valued for its strategy to develop innovative therapeutic solutions capable of transforming the lives of patients that suffer serious and debilitating diseases. Also, they recognized the company's ability to operate to the highest standards of quality and safety, transparency, ethics, and honesty.
Commitment to talent and a fairer and more liveable planet
The 2021 Ferrer Sustainability Report’s data also reflects our commitment, through its Great People pillar, to a culture focused on people, based on trust and responsibility. In this sense, the company was recognized in Spain, Mexico, and Portugal as a Great Place to Work®. This proved our ability to attract and retain the best professionals, with almost 96% of our workforce on indefinite contracts at the end of 2021, and 103,139 cumulative hours of training for our team.
“Ferrer’s people are the main activists for our purpose. Each one of us, in our day-to-day decisions, contributes to the creation of our culture. A culture that has to do with how we lead, how we communicate, and how we organize ourselves, but that also involves a commitment to a more sustainable world. That is because, as a company, we want to contribute to the environmental preservation of our planet and the equality of opportunities. Moreover, we want to make Ferrer not only a great company to work for, but also a company with a positive impact and, therefore, focused on the benefit of all our stakeholders", highlighted Bea Vila, Chief People & Sustainability Officer of Ferrer.
We are also a driving force behind the Social Justice pillar, through which in Ferrer we intend to create a fairer and more equitable society. We mobilized 420 volunteers during the Days for Good, dedicating more than 1,300 hours to social and environmental projects. Within the same pillar, we promote the defense of human rights to prevent and guarantee non-discrimination, health, and freedom of association. Furthermore, we want to achieve decent working conditions among our people and contribute to correcting social inequality.
Thanks to the actions for the environmental preservation of the planet that are part of the Liveable Planet pillar, we achieved a reduction of our global carbon footprint of 18.9% in 2021. This way, we approached the objective of reducing it by 25% by 2030. To this extent, the company works 100% with electricity from renewable sources, avoiding the emission of 7,500 tons of CO2 each year. Besides, we also managed to recover 76.5% of our waste globally, thanks to actions such as treatment, recycling, recovery, and composting, among others.
In the packaging field, we reaffirmed our commitment to the circular economy with the launch of the Packaging for good program, which includes the promotion of eco-design and the recovery of materials. The program works in line with the company's vision of reducingthe carbon footprint of its packaging by 25% by 2030 through the eco-design of 50% of its products. In addition, in June 2021 we started the Ecoins initiative in Costa Rica, a reverse logistics project that permitted the recovery of more than 4,500 tons of materials at more than 450 recollection points. With this project, we positioned Ferrer as the first pharmaceutical company to take responsibility for the recovery of waste medicine and fulfill the indications of the Costa Rican law regarding the Extended Responsibility of the Producer.
To achieve Ferrer’s goal of becoming a carbon-positive company, we have also joined the Business Ambition 1.5°C, promoted by the United Nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the company also participated in the Conference on Climate Change (COP26) to align our commitment with the recommendations and experiences of the scientific community.