BARCELONA, Spain, July 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In 2021 the pharmaceutical company Ferrer invested 61.4% of its net profits in social and environmental causes, as part of its purpose to make a positive impact in society. As the company's Sustainability Report states, Ferrer reinvested the major part of its profits in several projects aimed at fostering equal opportunities for people in vulnerable situations, as well as projects aimed at protecting the planet. In this way, Ferrer materialized its purpose to make a positive impact. And the number of net profits invested represent a 53.2% rise in comparison to 2020.
Among the main projects in which Ferrer invested its profits in 2021, it is worth highlighting the one million 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 gardens and with a permaculture regime, want to promote a green, sustainable and agroecological city model. The company also supports boys and girls at risk of social exclusion through music education programs. These are aimed at preventing school failure and enhance their educational, cultural, and emotional development.
As Mario Rovirosa, Ferrer's CEO explained, the company has set its profit margin "in 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, Rovirosa 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 being in the world because we believe that our activity as a pharmaceutical company must create more social and environmental value than it consumes", Rovirosa stated.
In this way, all Ferrer's strategy is related to the people and the development of their talent, the protection of the planet and the battle to achieve a fairer and more egalitarian society.
As a result of the work completed in 2021, Ferrer also became in early 2022 the first Spanish pharmaceutical laboratory to enter the B Corp community, the companies' 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 with the highest standards of quality and safety, transparency, ethics, and honesty.
Commitment to talent and a fairer and more liveable world
The 2021 Ferrer Sustainability Report's data also reflects the company's commitment, through its Great People axis, to a culture focused on people, based on trust and responsibility. In this sense, the company was recognized in Spain, Mexico, and Portugal as an excellent place to work (Great Place to Work®). This proved their ability to attract and retain the best professionals, with almost 96% of its workforce on indefinite contracts at the end of 2021, and 103,139 cumulative hours of training for their teams.
"Ferrer's people are the main activists of 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 compromise with 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 for all our stakeholders," highlighted Bea Vila, Chief People & Sustainability Officer of Ferrer.
The people at Ferrer were also a driving force behind the Social Justice axis, through which the company intends to create a fairer and more equitable society. Therefore, the company mobilized 420 volunteers during the Days for Good, dedicating more than 1,300 hours to social and environmental projects. Within the same axis oriented towards social justice, the company itself promotes the defense of human rights to prevent and guarantee non-discrimination, health, and freedom of association. Furthermore, they want to achieve decent working conditions among its people and contribute to correct social inequality.
Through the actions for the environmental preservation of the planet that are part of the Liveable Planet axis, Ferrer achieved a reduction of its global carbon footprint of 18.9% in 2021. This way, they approached the objective of having reduced it by 25% by 2030. To this extent, the company works with a 100% electricity coming from renewable sources, avoiding the emission of 7,500 tons of CO2 each year. Besides, the company also achieved to recover 76.5% of its waste globally, thanks to actions such as treatment, recycling, recovery, and composting, among others.
In the packaging field, Ferrer reaffirmed its 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 reducing by 25% the carbon footprint of its packaging in 2030 through the eco-design of 50% of its products. In addition, in June 2021 Ferrer started the Ecoins project in Costa Rica, a reverse logistics project that allowed the recovery of more than 4,500 tons of materials at more than 450 recollection points. With this project, Ferrer positioned itself as the first pharmacist to assume the recovery of waste medicines and fulfill the indications of the Costa Rican law regarding the Extended Responsibility of the Producer.
Moreover, to achieve Ferrer's goal of becoming a carbon-positive company, they have joined to the Business Ambition 1'5°C, promoted by the United Nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the company participated as well in the Conference on Climate Change (COP26) to align its commitment with the recommendations and experiences of the scientific community.
Contact information:
gortizdez@ferrer.com
Tel.: +34 936 003 779
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