Sustainability

IDA’s strategy is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG3: ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’ is of course particularly relevant to IDA’s work, but we believe that we can create most value by looking at all SDGs to see where we can have the biggest impact. As we work towards our mission, we believe that this should never be at the cost of human rights, fair labour practices and the environment, in line with the principles which we adhere to as a participant in the UN Global Compact.

In 2018, IDA Foundation joined the UN Global Compact, a UN initiative uniting more than 12,000 organisations from over 140 countries. Through participating, we commit ourselves to 10 principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. We see these principles as a logical extension of our values and Code of Conduct and have taken our affiliation with UN Global Compact as an opportunity to further incorporate meaningful developments into our day-to-day operations. A more detailed summary of IDA’s approach to sustainability, as well as our future ambitions and targets, can be found in our sustainability report: Communication on Engagement 2023.

In all we do, we are committed to ensuring we fulfil our mission in a responsible and sustainable manner and add value where possible.

SDG UNGC

This is affirmed in IDA’s Code of Conduct, which guides our employees and stakeholders to make the right decisions in the performance of our daily business. This ensures that we act with integrity, respect for the law and in line with IDA’s core values. Our Code of Conduct has an umbrella function, referring to related policies on human rights, anti-corruption, occupational health & safety (labour) and environmental sustainability.

The three pillars: Purpose, People, Planet

IDA Foundation's Sustainability Strategy has identified three pillars: Purpose, People and Planet. Different topics derived from the Sustainable Development Goals in these different categories are more, or to a lesser extent, relevant for IDA Foundation. The category Purpose relates to IDA’s mission of bridging the gap in access to medicines and to the achievement of universal health coverage as a long-term goal. We do this by assuring the highest quality, by strengthening local capacity and by creating awareness around topics related to universal health coverage. The category People focuses on the health, wellbeing and safety of people in our organisation, in our supply chain and the people that are end-users of our medicines and medical supplies. The category Planet revolves around our environmental strategy; which we capture in our Environmental Management System (EMS - ISO14001), focusing on our impacts such as waste management, emissions caused by the transport of our goods, amongst others, and identifying opportunities to improve our approach with our stakeholders.

In 2023, we completed our first CO2 Baseline assessment in line with GHG Protocol, as we have set a long-term target for 2030 to be CO2-neutral for Scope 1 and 2, and realise a 35% reduction of our scope 3 emissions from our baseline. The baseline outcomes showed that the majority of our CO2 footprint is Scope 3, with 91% of Scope 3 emissions coming from Purchased Goods and Services (e.g. the production of health goods). Please contact sustainability@idafoundation.org if you would like more information on our CO2 measurement.

Read more about IDA's actions and milestones in our Sustainability journey in our blogs:

Sustainability Reports (Communication on Engagement - UN Global Compact):

Sustainability Policies:

Environmental Policy