Month: August 2023

DUBLIN, August 31, 2023 /3BL/ – Alkermes plc (Nasdaq: ALKS) today announced the recipients of the 2023 Alkermes Inspiration Grants® program. Grants were awarded to 11 nonprofit organizations working to address the needs of people living with addiction, serious mental illness or cancer. The selected programs are also focused on addressing unmet needs in historically under-resourced or underrepresented communities with longstanding and widespread health disparities.

“At Alkermes, we have come to appreciate that medicines, no matter how innovative, are only one component of comprehensive care. We created the Alkermes Inspiration Grants program to support a broad spectrum of innovative approaches to addressing educational gaps and supporting the needs of people living with serious chronic diseases, as well as their caregivers and family members. This year’s recipients have shown the potential, through unique and meaningful ways, to positively impact diverse communities across the United States,” said Richard Pops, Chief Executive Officer of Alkermes.

Nearly 200 applications were submitted for this highly competitive program. Submissions were evaluated based on a set of criteria outlined in the request for proposals, including clearly defined needs, objectives, activity format, mode of delivery and intended audience, and relevance to historically under-resourced or underrepresented communities. Grant recipients were selected by a committee that included senior leaders from Alkermes and individuals from outside the organization chosen to represent the perspectives of people with lived experience, caregivers and patient advocates.

Since 2016, the Alkermes Inspiration Grants program has awarded more than $5 million in funding to innovative programs that support the needs of those impacted by serious diseases in our areas of focus. For more information on the Alkermes Inspiration Grants program, please visit https://www.alkermes.com/responsibility/alkermes-inspiration-grants.

2023 Grant Recipient Organizations and Programs:

The 12-24 Club‘s Fresh Start Cafe Job Training Program offers employment in the Fresh Start Cafe kitchen. Participants will learn restaurant and food service industry skills, to be dependable team members and to provide customer service while advancing their recovery and healing their mental and emotional health. As part of the program, employees become members of recovery groups, are sponsored and sponsor others, attend meetings regularly, and serve as ambassadors for the 12-24 Club’s recovery environment.

The American Psychiatric Association Foundation‘s (APAF) Caregivers’ Mental Wellness Support Project will leverage a network of psychiatrists, corporate executives and community leaders to raise awareness of the impact that caring for people with serious mental illness and substance use disorders has on the mental well-being of family caregivers. This includes developing and disseminating self-assessment resources to caregivers and tools for those interacting with caregivers in the workplace and community.

Cancer Legal Care will assist Minnesotans facing ovarian cancer and their loved ones by partnering with key ovarian cancer community groups and providers to focus on outreach, community education and the provision of free, direct legal services to increase clients’ quality of life and help mitigate the financial stress often associated with ovarian cancer.

Caregiver Action Network will develop culturally appropriate content and messaging for diverse family caregivers of teens with serious mental illness and use that content to expand their existing resource: Blueprint for Families of Loved Ones with Mental Health Issues.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center will expand its community-led First Response Self-Assessment Tool, a product previously funded through Alkermes Inspiration Grants, to Spanish-speaking communities. Community response programs are designed to improve outcomes for people in need, including people with serious mental illness and/or substance use disorders, by reducing police contact and increasing connections to care for these underrepresented communities.

Foundation for Women’s Cancer (FWC) will expand the reach and frequency of MoveTheMessage, a national campaign designed to motivate high-risk and historically marginalized communities to take preventive action against the five gynecologic cancers by increasing awareness through dissemination of FWC educational resources and understanding the needs of those at risk for ovarian, cervical, vulvar, vaginal and endometrial cancer.

NAMI Mobile (Alabama) will expand the use of virtual reality headsets to offer a first-person immersive experience used in the training of law enforcement to improve their ability to safely and empathically deal with individuals with mental illness who are in crisis. The headsets will allow officers to experience some of the distress individuals feel when in crisis, thus equipping them to choose appropriate de-escalation skills.

Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation aims to equip employers in Ohio with the necessary resources to address the opioid epidemic in the workplace. Employers will receive guidance on identifying and responding appropriately to opioid addiction, as well as addressing mental health and emergency response issues in the workplace. By empowering employers to tackle the opioid crisis, the program aims to create healthier workplaces and contribute to the overall well-being of employees and communities.

Ovations for the Cure will expand its Helping Hands Program, which provides meals to support the regaining of strength loss that occurs in chemotherapy for women undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. The grant will be used to support women and their families during these times of significant stress by decreasing the burden of planning, grocery shopping and preparation of healthy meals.

The Recovery Community Network (RCN) will provide a peer recovery specialist to work with Camino Contigo to identify individuals living with addiction and provide peer support. Camino Contigo (Spanish for “walk with you”) is a support group for Hispanics in the community with mental health concerns, helping them better understand their concerns while connecting them to available resources.

She Recovers Foundation will reach, educate and inspire diverse women ages 18-35 who are experiencing mental health issues, trauma and substance use. The grant will be used to create opportunities for women to develop their own holistic recovery patchworks, share their experience with other young women, and celebrate success.

About Alkermes plc 
Alkermes plc is a fully-integrated, global biopharmaceutical company developing innovative medicines in the fields of neuroscience and oncology. The company has a portfolio of proprietary commercial products focused on alcohol dependence, opioid dependence, schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for neurological disorders and cancer. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Alkermes has a research and development center in Waltham, Massachusetts; a research and manufacturing facility in Athlone, Ireland; and a manufacturing facility in Wilmington, Ohio. For more information, please visit Alkermes’ website at www.alkermes.com.

ALKERMES INSPIRATION GRANTS® is a registered service mark of Alkermes, Inc.

Alkermes Contacts: 
For Investors: Sandra Coombs, +1 781 609 6377 
For Media: Gretchen Murphy, +1 781 609 6419

On July 20, 2023, AstraZeneca, GSK, Novo Nordisk, Merck, Roche, Sanofi and Samsung Biologics, seven of the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers, published an open letter to all of their suppliers with an urgent plea to become greener, more efficient, and circular. The manufacturers have joined with the World Health Organization (WHO) in a strategic effort to decarbonize the healthcare sector and move it toward net zero.

What is different from each individual company’s previous corporate climate communications is the fact that they have joined together and broadened their collective goals to require reporting and commitments from their supply chains. The companies’ leaders have set joint, minimum climate and sustainability targets as well as definitive deadlines, beginning in 2025, to disclose emissions, climate and waste reductions, and science-based target goals. They are also requiring their suppliers to make commitments to switch to renewable power by 2030, to set climate and reporting standards for suppliers further upstream, and to set targets to increase water efficiency and establish comprehensive water stewardship practices.

This is a LOT for suppliers to take in! Many, particularly small and privately owned companies, have never had to calculate their own Scope 1 and 2 emissions, consider their Scope 3 emissions (emissions from their own upstream and downstream supply chains), or address the setting of science-based targets for the future. This is a huge lift for any company, and embarking on a sustainable climate journey can seem like an insurmountable task, particularly with a reporting deadline in just two years.

SCS has been helping companies navigate sustainability challenges for four decades and assists companies in making the transition toward robust climate and environmental objectives. We understand what it takes to start from scratch on a corporate climate strategy, the steps involved to achieve an initial corporate carbon footprint, and how to successfully present accurate data in a sustainability report that can be fully verified. We’ve worked with many global companies, large and small, to understand what is considered material within a particular industry and business type, what should be reported, and how to move where you are today towards setting achievable and meaningful targets based on science and fact instead of marketing spin and fiction.

Whether you are in the Pharma supply chain or any other supply chain that is beginning to require emissions reporting, and regardless of the size of your company, below are our five recommendations for meeting the new emissions reporting requirements and setting a new standard for your ongoing corporate sustainability practices.

1. Offset Panic with a Plan

Many companies may find themselves in a tailspin. That is understandable, but panic will not solve the problem. Planning will. Pull together your internal stakeholders, including members of your leadership team, operations, supply chain management, procurement, IT, accounting and others who are involved in any activities that utilize power (generation and usage), transportation, waste, emissions and recordkeeping. Unless you already have an experienced sustainability leader well-versed on greenhouse gas calculations, reporting and climate mitigation on your team, it is best to bring into your kick-off discussions an external climate consultant with experience in emissions calculations, science-based target setting, sustainability reporting, sustainable supply chains, and water stewardship practices. This will help you understand the breadth and scope of what you will be undertaking to meet the reporting and science-based target requirements, and support you in putting together a successful internal ESG Management System. For many companies, this will be a new approach to doing business that will require significant internal shifts to ensure successful entry into the circular economy.

2. Get Educated to Take Advantage of the Latest Climate Science 

Once your company has created an internal sustainability team focused on meeting your customers’ emissions and climate requirements, your team would benefit from learning about the range of factors contributing to climate change. Companies focused solely on carbon dioxide emission reductions could be missing a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to establishing and meeting science-based targets with meaningful, short- and long-term climate impact. For instance, your team will be inspired to learn that methane mitigation has far more short-term climate benefit than most people recognize, and that reductions in nitrous oxide and other “long-lived” climate pollutants are also powerful ways to reduce impacts from your company and supply chain. Moreover, you can now get credit for reducing very “short-lived” climate pollutants, such as black carbon from combustion and tropospheric ozone, which have historically been left out of carbon footprinting. These potent climate pollutants are having a major impact on the earth’s excess trapped heat, which in turn is wreaking havoc on global and regional temperatures and increasingly dangerous weather-related events. This is not the climate science of a decade ago, and sustainability teams owe it to themselves to be fully educated so they can make informed decisions when reporting and setting achievable science-based targets.

3. Develop the Basics

For suppliers new to emissions and sustainability reporting, the first place to start is with a Materiality Assessment. A materiality assessment, in essence, is a determination of the myriad ways in which your company operations, including your own supply chains, may be contributing to climate change as well as other environmental, social and economic impacts. The assessment will help you discover what to report based on your industry, how to collect quantitative and qualitative data, how to engage with stakeholders, and how to align with the different emissions reporting frameworks such as GRI, CDP, TCFD and others that might be required by the companies you supply. Of particular concern will be assessing the materiality of Scope 3 emissions, which fall into 15 categories including emissions from both your upstream and downstream value chain.

In addition, you’ll want to calculate your company’s corporate carbon footprint or Greenhouse Gas Inventory and have your data independently verified to ensure that it is accurate increasing confidence in the data reported. Care should be taken to ensure that the data meet the supply chain requirements of your customers as well as the requirements of any regulatory requirements in the regions where you do business, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Directive (CSDR), California SB 253, and many of the proposed regulations in the U.S. and abroad. You’ll also want an inventory format that can be used year after year to ensure consistency in reporting.

4. Get Grounded in the Different Emissions Disclosure Frameworks

There are many different emissions disclosure frameworks used in the market. For instance, if your company is a supplier to both pharmaceutical companies and other large entities such as retailers, you may find yourself needing to report the same data in different formats. When preparing a sustainability report, either for the first time or on an ongoing basis, keep in mind the changing reporting landscape and the requirements of each of your “requesters” (the companies and agencies requiring you to report your emissions data).

AstraZeneca, for example, is requiring suppliers to report through CDP. Samsung Biologics is also a member of the CDP Supply Chain, enabling its suppliers to report directly through the CDP framework. Other frameworks such as TCFD and GRI may also be used by other pharma companies requiring supply chain reporting, and companies in multiple supply chains will need to be aware of the differences in reporting frameworks to ensure accuracy of reporting.

For companies new to emissions reporting, working with a reputable sustainability consultancy can offer significant insights and support in understanding the nuances of sustainability reporting frameworks and ESG risk rating systems that all of the pharma companies are scrutinized under, such as Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), MSCI, Bloomberg ESG, DJSI, Sustainalytics, and others. Supplier reporting, which is considered part of the pharma companies’ Scope 3 emissions, will continue to have a growing impact on how pharma companies are rated.

5. Get Serious About Your Company’s Future Climate Impact

Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions reporting is simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to shifting gears towards becoming a circular company. The pharma companies are requiring science-based target setting as a way to not only future-proof your company but also to detail how your company will facilitate becoming part of a low-carbon economy. These are well-defined and achievable targets for emissions reductions both internally and within your own supply chain leading to successful climate mitigation. Science-based target setting can also be an integral part of creating your own sustainable supply chain, another requirement set forth by the pharma companies.

Integral to the lowering of emissions, both internally and externally, is the creation of new pathways for additional climate strategies that move beyond a solo focus on carbon emissions and dig deep into other forms of pollutants that negatively impact air, land and water. Many companies are implementing corporate zero waste strategies that address the reduction, recycling, and diversion from landfills of all forms of solid, liquid, and chemical waste. In tandem, water stewardship practices are considered by many, and in particular by the ESG risk rating organizations, to be “the next carbon” as the level of chemical and plastic pollution in our waterways continues to escalate and access to clean water diminishes throughout the world. While the pharma companies have extended an olive branch in these areas by moving requirements for implementing such programs back to 2030, now is the time to be adding these into your comprehensive sustainability strategy to ensure that your company and all its facilities are able to pivot to meet the requirements and achieve a lower carbon and pollution footprint.

Regardless of your previous reporting requirements, whether full-on ESG reporting or none at all, the time has come for all companies that fall within the supply chains of large, publicly traded entities to realize that the new, green economy is upon us, and required reporting is quickly becoming the norm, not the exception. To be a part of this economy requires diligence, education, and support from others who are well versed on the regulations, reporting frameworks, and the science that’s driving a more climate-friendly way of business. We are here to help and work together with you towards building a greener, cleaner planet.

AUTHOR

Tom Ehart 
Corporate Marketing Director 
SCS Global Services 
Email: corporatemarketing@scsglobalservices.com