Data and Information Sources
The major sources include secondary data from company websites, including Sustainability / Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) / Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Reports, Annual Reports, Financial Disclosures, Integrated Reports, policy documents/position statements, data summary reports, infographics and other disclosures such as information obtained directly from company websites, etc. in the public domain.
In most cases, the company’s environmental sustainability data is regularly revised, modified, and updated due to structural changes, changes in calculation methodologies, or improvements in the accuracy of emission factors/activity. Because of this, every effort has been made to consider the latest reported data in the public domain.
Furthermore, some pharmaceutical companies (like Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, etc.) also have divisions that produce non-pharmaceutical products like agricultural products, semiconductors, etc, and while these companies do report the financials for these divisions separately, the emissions and other environmental metrics are usually reported for the company/group as a whole. In these cases, we have reported the absolute and business (ratio indicator) environmental metrics of the whole company/group, and not just the pharmaceutical and/or medical device divisions.
There may be minor variances in data due to rounding off the numbers, decimal points, unit/currency conversion, etc. See the table below for annual currency conversion rates used in the analysis.
| Year | Euro (€) | Japanese Yen (¥) | USD ($) |
| 2019 | 1 | 122.06 | 1.12 |
| 2020 | 1 | 121.78 | 1.14 |
| 2021 | 1 | 129.86 | 1.18 |
| 2022 | 1 | 138 | 1.05 |
| 2023 | 1 | 151.94 | 1.08 |
Regarding Scope 2 emissions: Although the companies report Scope 2 emissions, both location-based and market-based emissions. In our analysis, market-based Scope 2 emissions have been used and analyzed because these more accurately reflect a company’s commitment to reduce emissions though renewable energy procurement.
The other sources of secondary data, wherever used, have been linked appropriately.
Strengths and Limitations of the Featured Articles
The articles in the series conducts a thorough examination of the climate change targets and the progress made in the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the respective companies, in addition to various other parameters related to environmental sustainability. Its objective is to highlight the methodologies employed by pharmaceutical companies in reporting and mitigating GHG emissions, water consumption, waste production, etc.
The articles do not aim to directly compare the emissions or reductions of different companies, nor their strategies or initiatives. It is important to be cautious in making such comparisons at this stage due to factors such as varying base years, differences in resource use, operational structures, company sizes, production scopes, inherent limitations in measuring GHG emissions, the completion of previous climate change target cycles, differing emission reduction strategies, and other considerations.
The expert commentary and review on the subject matter in this feature series has been provided by Dr. Surinder Deswal, Professor of Environmental Engineering, National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, India. His contribution is duly acknowledged.
For more information about a specific data analysis or any questions regarding the series, please reach out to Phalguni Deswal (editor@druganddeviceworld.com)
