Since our last corporate responsibility report in 2007, the world has changed dramatically. Although trust in business had already been dampened by corporate scandals and the collapse of a handful of businesses earlier in the decade, the current financial crisis has raised levels of public distrust of large multinational corporations to all-time highs. At the same time, the role of government in regulating business and addressing societal needs has intensified dramatically. Finally, environmental and social issues such as climate change and access to health care, once the purview of small groups of stakeholders, are now highly visible public policy issues.
These shifts are rapidly changing expectations for business. Governments around the world are demanding that businesses improve transparency and adopt a more holistic perspective on creating value. Several countries have passed legislation supporting, and, in some cases requiring, corporations to report on their social and environmental performance.
Increasingly investors are including aspects of corporate responsibility performance as indicators of strong corporate governance, risk management or overall management quality. And recent consumer surveys show that the demand for socially responsible products and services continues to intensify.
At Pfizer, these developments have coincided with significant changes within our company. We have reorganized to take advantage of our size and scale while committing to operate with the agility, speed and focus of an entrepreneurial organization. We are also pursuing several strategies, including a greater focus on emerging markets and creating new opportunities for our established products — medicines that have lost, or will soon lose exclusivity. We have integrated our global health programs into our broader corporate responsibility efforts to better align our philanthropic programs, corporate responsibility initiatives and business priorities. Our Executive Leadership Team has championed the development of a new corporate responsibility strategy for Pfizer. And most recently, we announced an agreement to acquire Wyeth, the fifth-largest pharmaceutical company in the U.S. more ›