For a better life, apart from improving economic performance, Sanofi Vietnam has always attended to societal and environmental issues to create values for the community. By integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) into the core of its operations, the drug firm has enacted numerous pro-society initiatives and environmental protection programs to change lives.
“As a multinational pharmaceutical company and a drugmaker in Vietnam for over 60 years, Sanofi Vietnam is striving to fulfill its long-term commitment to social responsibility,” says Emin Turan, country director of Sanofi Vietnam and Cambodia.
“On the path to generating positive impacts on the society, the drugmaker has been mobilizing its capacity, ability and human resources to minimize the environmental footprint of its production and business activities,” Turan added.
Reducing the environmental footprint
In an effort to minimize negative impacts from raw materials and waste on the health of people and the environment during its operations, Sanofi Vietnam is constantly redesigning and renewing its products and services to create a healthy society.
Its pharmaceutical plant in Thu Duc City in HCMC is launching a series of programs to reduce its waste by recycling or reusing the plastic and paper waste in a safe and sustainable manner.
Through its program to eliminate plastic waste that was kick-started years ago, the firm targets to reduce the use of plastics at the factory to zero by 2022. Last year, the company managed to cut 14 tons of plastics in its production.
In addition, the factory made a reduction of 470 tons of carton paper used for packaging in 2020 while carrying out the “Carton Reduction” program, and recycled 30 tons of plastic waste over the past few months this year through its “Waste Reduction and Recycling” program.
In fact, efforts to cut the environmental footprint conducted at Sanofi Vietnam is part of the global group’s drive to protect Mother Earth. As a major global drugmaker, Sanofi has launched a fund worth three million euros for the “Planet Mobilization” program to put into action ideas and projects coming from its employees to further contribute to a healthier environment. This year, more than 500 employees from 63 sites in 29 countries participated in the firm’s environmental sustainability ideation program.
The program featuring boot camps, hackathons, and design thinking workshops led by Sanofi’s Innovation Lab helped the participating teams turn their ideas into sustainable projects.
One of three winning projects selected for the inaugural year and financed by Sanofi’s Planet Mobilization fund is “Rice is the New Green,” which is a project from Sanofi Vietnam’s HCMC team. The project is set to implement the first green and large-scale rice husk biomass, allowing Sanofi’s factory in HCMC to become a fossil fuel free site, eliminate 2.3 thousand tons of carbon dioxide a year and reduce steam costs by 40%.
Action for the community’s health and happiness
Putting heart into helping underprivileged people, Sanofi always sets aside a substantial part of its budget to engage in charitable programs to offer financial support to disabled children and orphans, and donate gifts to the lonely and elderly. These are the firm’s annual CSR activities to spread love and kindness to needy people.
Through its annual Dream for Children program, over 1,000 gift sets are presented to child patients at Oncology Hospital and Children’s Hospital.
In 2021, Sanofi Vietnam donated VND250 million for the VinaCapital Foundation to implement the Rural Outreach Clinic program, through which 2,000 children in rural areas in Vietnam were provided with free specialty healthcare and medical treatment for congenital heart disease.
Furthermore, as a contributor to the community, Sanofi Vietnam donated VND1.3 billion to households in the central region affected by storms last year and to the country’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
“With great ambition for social impact strategy, Sanofi Vietnam commits to bettering lives of people and creating more positive and sustainable values in the future,” says the representative of Sanofi Vietnam.
