About this review

About this Review

Scope of Reporting

This review covers Pfizer's worldwide business and provides information on our activities for the year ending on December 31, 2017. It describes key dimensions of both financial and non-financial performance. It also describes critical challenges in society – from expanding access to health care to our environmental impact – and our strategies for addressing them.

Corporate Responsibility Materiality

The content of this report is based on two key factors – its importance to stakeholders and its potential to influence business strategy. Our Corporate Responsibility team works with colleagues across the organization and engages with external stakeholders to help identify the critical issues we need to focus on to meet our commercial goals and society's expectations. These include the following non-financial, corporate responsibility issues that influence the sustainability of the organization:

Stakeholder Engagement

We greatly value our stakeholders' perspectives, and all Pfizer units globally and locally engage with stakeholders on relevant issues throughout the year. We continue to explore new ways to engage a broad range of stakeholders to better understand the evolving reporting environment and determine how key non-financial indicators are impacting our financial performance. In 2017, we advanced our efforts to organize, validate and streamline data supporting certain non-financial indicators and expect to continue to do so in 2018. Read more about how we engage our various stakeholder groups.

Corporate Responsibility Management

This review was developed by a core group of Pfizer colleagues representing each business unit and other key functions. The core group is managed by our Corporate Affairs department, whose leader is a member of the Executive Leadership Team and reports directly to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ian Read. Pfizer's commitment to society is embedded in our business strategy and vision, and our commercial teams and functional groups share the commitment to integrate such values into our daily work. The Corporate Responsibility team sets the strategic direction for meeting our commitment to society and supports the integration and implementation of programs and non-financial reporting throughout the company.

We are actively engaged in a dialogue with socially responsible and mainstream investors around their growing interest in environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and the impact on financial results. Today, we strive to have these principles permeate Pfizer at every level – including our Board of Directors – which maintains oversight for these issues through the Corporate Governance Committee. The Committee maintains an informed status on our corporate social responsibility, sustainability and philanthropic efforts and progress.

Improving Our Access to Medicines Offerings

Every two years, the Access to Medicine Index (ATMi) analyzes the top 20 research-based pharmaceutical companies on how they make essential medicines, vaccines and diagnostics accessible in low- and middle-income countries. The Index ranks these companies according to their efforts and their impact in improving access, including capacity building, research and development, compliance and other variables.

The ATMi was launched in 2008 by the Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF), a Holland-based international non-profit organization. In addition to the ATMi, the AMF has developed a suite of reports that examine the performance of pharmaceutical companies, for example in vaccines, oncology and anti-microbial resistance. Pfizer engages with stakeholders, from investors to policy-makers, on our performance in these rankings and efforts to improve access for communities around the world.

The 2018 ATMi will analyze company behaviors using a framework of 69 indicators organized in seven Technical Areas. The framework’s four Strategic Pillars correspond to four aspects of behavior.

Pfizer actively participates in the ATMi and will have updates on our next ranking in the 2018 Annual Review.

Global Reporting Frameworks

Pfizer continues to evaluate our approach to non-financial reporting, including reference to several existing, globally-recognized external frameworks. These include the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and the International Integrated Reporting Council. We relied on elements of each framework in developing this year's Annual Review while formally adhering to none in its entirety. We included a GRI Reference Table in this Annual Review as a tool to help readers more readily locate relevant information across Pfizer's web-based resources.

Pfizer also considers elements of other ESG indices and sustainability indicators – in particular, the ATMi and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (also known as the Global Goals). Throughout this report, you will see the Global Goals icons alongside various efforts to highlight the work we are doing across Pfizer to meet these goals by 2030.

As a signatory to the UN Global Compact – a document that asks companies to embrace universal principles and to partner with the UN – we submit an annual communication to the UN on our progress made towards achieving the Global Goals. View the full progress update.

Read more about our Corporate and Shareholder Information, including Forward-Looking Statements.