Are we doing the right things for society and for our business for the long term? Early in 2010, we asked ourselves this question. We knew we had a strong product portfolio and many respected corporate responsibility initiatives, but was it enough to create the value our shareholders demanded and society expects? To answer that question, we reviewed our approach to corporate responsibility and developed our new framework. The framework aligns our corporate responsibility priorities with our core business drivers. Learn more about our corporate responsibility approach.
Priorities & Performance Are we doing the right things for society and for our business for the long term?
- Home
- Corporate Responsibility
- Priorities & Performance
- Access to Health
- Environmental Sustainability
- Employees
- Ethics & Transparency
- Public Policy & Advocacy
- Giving at Merck
While our overall focus on access to health remains unchanged, we have identified four focus areas to ensure that we are well positioned to discover better ways to manage the many challenges that lie ahead:
We also reexamined how we measure our progress towards achieving our corporate responsibility objectives and targets, and have strengthened our metrics in order to provide our stakeholders with a better assessment of our performance.
Focus Areas
Access to Health
As a large healthcare company, with a mission to improve the health and wellbeing of people around the world, access to health remains the central focus of our corporate responsibility framework. With so much of the world's population unable to access meaningful health care, we recognize that Merck must be a leader in discovering better ways to provide access for those most in need. Learn more.
Environmental SustainabilityAs a large, research-based company we have operations around the globe that require vast amounts of resources to sustain; our focus on environmental sustainability will help us protect existing resources, minimize our impact, and discover better ways to maintain a healthy planet now and in the future. Learn more.
EmployeesOur most valuable resource is our people and we must focus on their inclusion and wellbeing to ensure our long-term growth. It is through our strong diversity and inclusion programs and our efforts on employee engagement that demonstrate our commitment to discovering ways to make Merck a better place to work. Learn more.
Ethics and TransparencyAll of our actions must be accomplished in the most ethical and transparent manner possible. Our standard of conduct must be of the highest order and we must be clear and open in the operation of our business; our stakeholders demand it and we believe it's our responsibility to act accordingly. Learn more.
Our Performance
"You can't manage what you don't measure". This phrase is heard often in the corporate world, including at Merck. Our challenge, however, wasn't the quantity of our measurements; instead our challenge was which metrics, of the many that we collect, best demonstrate our progress toward more responsible business practices. The new corporate responsibility framework provides an opportunity to align our corporate responsibility measurements directly with our business metrics. To succeed in embedding a philosophy of responsibility into everything we do, we recognize the need to make our key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to the operation of the business. Therefore we involved various business functions to help us determine which metrics were most relevant to the organization as well as to our stakeholders. The result is a new set of KPIs that begin to help us discover a better way of measuring our progress towards making Merck more valuable to our shareholders and society.
