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Summary

​​-17% GHG emissions, enhanced access to health in low- and middle income countries, and further progress towards gender parity – Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany has published its 2023 Sustainability Report.

Report Highlights

At Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, we are committed to tackling some of the most critical global challenges facing us today. Our efforts to create a fairer, healthier and more sustainable world center around three main goals: achieving human progress for more than one billion people through sustainable science and technology, fully integrating sustainability into our value chains, and becoming climate neutral while reducing resource consumption. Our 2023 Sustainability Report details our encouraging progress toward meeting these goals.

Our ongoing commitments to climate and environmental action
In 2023, we continued on our path toward achieving climate-neutral operations across our value chain by 2040. We decreased our direct and indirect emissions across scopes 1 and 2 by 17% compared to the previous year. At the same time, we increased the global share of electricity we procured from renewable sources to over 50%, progressing toward our target of 80% by 2030. The Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs) we have in place mean that by 2025, renewable energy certificates will cover 100% of our electricity purchases in Europe, 90% in North America and 70% in all other regions.

In addition, we enhanced our sustainability strategy by intensifying our focus on biodiversity and a circular economy. For example, we conducted comprehensive biodiversity impact assessments for our sites, which will provide a baseline for further quantitative analysis. These efforts help us to more effectively prioritize future biodiversity initiatives and restore our natural environment. As part of working toward a circular economy, we have set a new target of achieving a 70% circularity rate across our entire Group by 2030.

Diversity, equity and inclusion – empowering women in management positions
We remain committed to fostering diversity and equity and creating a genuinely inclusive culture for all employees. We reinforced this commitment with our goal to achieve gender parity in management positions globally by 2030. In this year’s report, we are pleased to announce we increased the share of women in management roles to an all-time high of 39%.

Sustainability in our supply chains – driving change across the industry
We are continually working to make our value chains more sustainable. One of the key first steps has been gaining a better understanding of our global supplier network. Two-thirds of our suppliers now have a valid sustainability assessment, a significant improvement compared to 46% the previous year. Additionally, in 2023, we began including primary greenhouse gas emission data from service providers (scope 3.1) in our calculations. We also continuously strive to create more sustainable innovations and technologies for our customers. For example, in our Life Science business sector, we grew our Greener Alternative Products portfolio to 2,500 products in 2023, a 34% increase from the previous year.

Access to medicines – continuing the fight against schistosomiasis
For the last 15 years, we have been on a dedicated mission to eliminate the neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis. In 2023, we donated over two billion Praziquantel tablets and supported various programs that combat this dangerous parasitic illness in Sub-Saharan Africa and other tropical areas. In addition, we treated 84 million patients and secured approval for an innovative pediatric treatment designed for young children aged three months to six years. Thanks to these milestones and our ongoing collaboration with strong, long-term partners, we are steadily progressing toward eliminating schistosomiasis as a public health concern by 2030.

Sharing sustainability insights
Transparently communicating our sustainability efforts helps to maintain the trust of our patients, customers, partners, employees and suppliers. Therefore, our 2023 Sustainability Report provides an interactive experience using a variety of digital formats. In a unique story section of the report, we highlight a broad range of hands-on topics and projects on issues such as Green Chemistry, digital ethics in AI, sustainability in R&D and access to health, illustrating our commitment to sustainable progress.

We prepared our 2023 Sustainability Report in accordance with the 2021 GRI Standards. The report also reflects the requirements of the SASB standards and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Our non-financial statement, in accordance with the German Commercial Code (HGB) and applicable EU Taxonomy Regulation disclosures, forms part of our 2023 Annual Report.

About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across life science, healthcare and electronics. Around 63,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From providing products and services that accelerate drug development and manufacturing as well as discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2023, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of € 21 billion in 65 countries.

The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark “Merck” internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, operate as MilliporeSigma in life science, EMD Serono in healthcare and EMD Electronics in electronics. Since its founding in 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company’s technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company.

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Media Contact Info:
Judith Rahner:
+49 6151 72 7694

Timo Breiner:
+49 151 1454 2512

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