Our Purpose Is to Create Value for Patients Now and Into the Future.
We focus on improving health in society and driving business growth by embedding sustainabilityinto our business approach.
As sustainability becomes more important to both companies and investors and terms such as “responsible investing” or “sustainable investing” are gathering traction in the corporate and investment sectors, there is a need for accurate and reliable information regarding companies’ performance in such topics. All types of companies are being evaluated and rated on their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance by several third-party providers of reports and ratings.
These ranking and ratings are valuable for stakeholders searching for information on UCB’s sustainability practices and for UCB itself. These evaluations, when transparent about their source of data and methodology, can be helpful in identifying gaps and allow us to improve our business practices.
ESG Ratings
We choose to actively collaborate with ranking and rating organizations that:
- include in their evaluation our priority areas for societal impact or focus on one of them;
- produce ranking or rating reports that are important and relevant to our different stakeholders.
UCB is on a continuous journey to improve its sustainability reporting practices and keeps up to date with the different trends in this field. We are currently reporting against the Global Reporting initiative (GRI), the Sustainable Development Goals’ frameworks and the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board (SASB) reporting Standards to ensure we report on the ESG issues most relevant to our industry.
Instead of individually providing specific points of data and information to the different ESG ranking and rating providers, we are working on making relevant, accurate and reliable data publicly available.
UCB rating: 13.7
More info about Sustainalytics
The rating scale is made up of 5 risk levels ranging from severe risk (>40) to negligible risk (<10).
The scoring methodology is based on the assessment of 20 key ESG topics.
For more info about Sustainalytics, refer to Sustainalytics website.
UCB rating: AA
More info about MSCI
The rating scale is made up of 7 levels ranging from CCC (poor performance) to AAA (excellent performance).
The scoring methodology is based on the assessment of 37 key ESG topics.
Based on the latest update (June 2022), the UCB rating is AA.
For more info about MSCI, refer to MSCI website.
The use by UCB of any MSCI ESG Research LLC or its affiliates (“MSCI”) data, and the use of MSCI logos, trademarks, service marks or index names herein, do not constitute a sponsorship, endorsement, recommendation, or promotion of UCB by MSCI. MSCI services and data are the property of MSCI or its information providers, and are provided ‘as-is’ and without warranty. MSCI names and logos are trademarks or service marks of MSCI.
UCB rating: B-
More info about ISS ESG
The rating scale is made up of 12 levels ranging from D- (poor performance) to A+ (excellent performance).
The scoring methodology is based on the assessment of up to 100 sector specific criterias.
For more info about ISS ESG, refer to ISS website.
UCB ratings:
A- for climate change
B for water security
More info about CDP
The rating scale is made up of 9 levels ranging from F (no information available) to A (excellent performance).
The scoring methodology is based on the assessment of 12 topics related to environment impact.
Based on the latest update (2022), UCB ratings are:
- B for climate change
- B for water security
For more info about CDP, refer to CDP website.
UCB disclosure score is
only available to WDI signatory investors.
More info about Workforce Disclosure Initiative
The Workforce Disclosure Initiative (WDI) aims to improve corporate transparency and accountability on workforce issues, provide companies and investors with comprehensive and comparable data and help increase the provision of good jobs worldwide.
For the first time in 2020, UCB was one of 141 companies which took part in the WDI survey and had a level of disclosure higher than average for first time responders.
For more info about WDI, refer to WDI website
More info about the Indices
The FTSE4Good Index Series is designed to identify companies that demonstrate strong environmental, social and governance practices measured against globally recognised standards.
The BEL® ESG Index is designed to facilitate the adoption of mainstream sustainable investment solutions by investors, identifying and tracking the companies within the BEL® 20 and the BEL® Mid
indices that have demonstrated the best ESG practices.
Environment: Our 2030 Targets
Human health and the health of our planet are deeply intertwined. We are reducing our environmental footprint across our business activities and operations, keeping in mind both current and future generations
Our targets are set in absolute numbers - independent of our business growth - benchmarked against 2015.
UCB is committed to aligning with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), an initiative created by the Financial Stability Board. Please find our disclosures as of December 31st, 2022 here.
Become carbon neutral
- reducing the emissions by 35%
- compensating those we cannot reduce
Reduce water consumption by 20%
Reduce waste generation by 25%
UCB has committed to science-based targets since 2019. To reduce our carbon footprint, we have committed to reducing absolute Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions under our control by 38% by 2030, compared to 2015. We also committed to ensuring that 60% of emissions created by our suppliers will be covered by Science Based Target Initiative-like targets by 2025.
To accelerate, and for areas where we cannot reduce our emissions in the short term, we will continue to compensate to reach our goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.
We continue our path to reduce water usage by 20% by 2030, in absolute terms versus the 2015 baseline, aware that this is an ambitious target given the water intensive
products being launched or part of our pipeline.
By optimizing water sampling and automating fans we have already seen a considerable saving in water. This effort is combined with green building certifications and our green-by-design approach to decouple our growth from our environmental footprint.
We have set out to reduce absolute waste generation by 25% by 2030, compared with our 2015 base year. We are currently able to recover 70% of our waste globally, mainly through solvent recovery and regeneration.
UCB’s waste mapping reinforces the need to focus on reducing the amount of fresh raw materials used in chemical production. To enhance our efforts, UCB adopted the Process Mass Intensity (PMI) metric developed by the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Green Chemistry Institute (GCI). For every new pharma molecule developed at UCB, we set a PMI target to monitor and materialize our green-by-design approach. For every new molecule produced, we follow three best practices – reduce, reuse and recycle – to minimize waste generation.
Social
As of 31 December 2023
Creating the culture for UCB colleagues to thrive, and caring for each other, is essential for delivering on our patient value ambition and for generating wider societal value.
Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) is foundational to our sustainability approach. This means inspiring a culture of inclusion by providing equitable opportunities to all employees, embracing diverse talents and leveraging diversity of thought and experience to create value for patients, now and into the future. At UCB, we have always defined diversity as the accumulated richness of people’s unique backgrounds, lives, cultural experiences, and the diversity of thought that this brings to our work. Equity means ensuring all employees are offered fair opportunities for development, advancement, compensa-tion and reward as per their aspirations. Last but by no means least, inclusion means respecting individual differences and cap-turing the advantages that this provides to drive greater impact and value in our work.
Strong presence around the globe
1 209 new colleagues joined us
815 colleagues left us
resulting in a 8.3% employee turnover
51 / 49 gender split
Governance
Conducting business in a responsible way that drives ethical behavior is fundamental to our continued success and to delivering on commitments to our stakeholders.
Conducting business in a responsible way is fundamental to UCB’s core values and ethical business practices are foundational to our sustainability approach. We have a strong culture of integrity, with policies and procedures in place to ensure the highest ethical standards are applied throughout the company’s value chain, including the core principles governing how the organization operates, how decisions are made and how risks are mitigated.
Code of conduct
The UCB Code of Conduct is our governing policy that reflects UCB’s core company values, including accountability and integrity. The Code outlines the general principles of business conduct that are expected from UCB colleagues and partners throughout the world.
Employees and contractors are required to undertake mandatory training on the UCB Code of Conduct, which is incorporated into each employee/contractor’s training plan.
Tax strategy and policy form an integrated part of UCB’s ethical and sustainability practices and constitute an explicit part of UCB’s code of conduct, driving compliant and ethical behavior of UCB employees.
Risk management
Engaging with key representatives from all operational, function-al and strategic business areas, risks are identified and assessed by each business area and the respective leadership team. In addition, a “top-down/outside-in” assessment is conducted to complete a holistic risk profile.
UCB continues to demonstrate its commitment to managing uncertainty by creating accountability at the top and driving action by the business. Every top risk is owned by a member of the Executive Committee. That member is accountable for understanding the nature of the risk and enable our response to it.
Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption (ABAC)
The UCB Code of Conduct encompasses, amongst others, core principles and behaviors aiming at mitigating the risks related to bribery and corruption as well as human rights infringements. Considering the nature of our business, UCB identified our engagement of the healthcare stakeholders as the primary ABAC risk area.
Corporate governance
The governance of UCB is based on a “one-tier” structure. This means that the Company is administrated by a Board of Directors and run by an Executive Committee, whose respective functions and responsibilities are clearly defined in accordance with the Articles of Association of the Company and the UCB Corporate Governance Charter.
The roles and responsibilities delegated to the Executive Committee are established by the Board.