Sustainability is essential for Evotec as our activities are designed to improve the lives of future generations of patients. You can find more information on our approach for sustainability, our internal structure and our performance on this page and the relating subpages for Governance, Environment and Social.
Curing sooner, safer, smarter
At Evotec, we aim for reshaping the future of healthcare through providing flexible access for our partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to our platform across the continuum of discovery, development and manufacturing to accelerate the time from concept to cure and to ensure that the right drugs reach the right patients – sooner, safer, and smarter. To be successful on that journey, sustainability is essential as our activities are designed to improve lives of future generations of patients. Our focus to generate sustainable profitable growth is aligned with our efforts to make responsible use of resources, prioritise environmentally friendly processes, reduce waste, and lower emissions. We ensure that today's medical breakthroughs neither come with harming well-being of people today nor at the expense of tomorrow's generations.
We strive to make an important contribution to the well-being of humanity. For many serious diseases there is still no cure available today and demographic change with its aging population is further increasing the need for new therapies.
Our Approach
Our sustainability strategy is built around the three core ESG pillars: Environment, Social, and Governance. We refer to these pillars as “Protecting the Planet” (Environment), “Empowering Our People” (Social), and “Responsible Business” (Governance). These ESG aspects form the framework of our strategy, guide us to sustainably develop new therapeutic solutions in collaboration with our partners. Our approach ensures that we create a positive impact in all three areas simultaneously, without compromising any of them.
Protecting the Planet
- We aim to contribute to protecting the planet to help build a healthier environment for future generations.
- We commit to reducing scope 1 & 2 emissions by at least 50.4% and reduce scope 3 GHG from purchased goods and services and capital goods 72% per million EUR value added by 2032.
- We also commit to reach net-zero emissions across the value chain by 2045 at the latest.
- We aim to manage our water and resources in a responsible manner to reduce biodiversity loss and the spread of diseases.
Empowering People
- We strive to discover and develop highly effective therapeutics that will be globally available for patients.
- We invest in our people by focusing on developing and managing their skills.
- We aim to ensure a safe work environment and the wellbeing of our people by strengthening our occupational health and safety approach.
- We leverage diversity, equity, and inclusion, by means of respect, openness, and care for all, to create an environment of psychological safety.
Responsible Business
- We conduct our business with high governance standards.
- We aim for a transparent and effective governance structure.
- We involve a broad range of stakeholders to make responsible decisions and grow our business sustainably.
How we govern ESG
At Evotec, the responsibility for the implementation of sustainability across the group lies with the leaders of each functional area, based on the alignment with the Group strategy. Targets for each area are aligned to reach our overarching strategic goals. While commitment and sponsorship by the management is key, success will depend on anchoring sustainability in our corporate culture and establishing responsibilities within the organisation.
Already in 2020, we created the department of Global ESG and its supervising function Head of Global IR & ESG. The core ESG team is overseeing reporting on sustainability topics and advising all functions within Evotec in implementation of measures to improve the ESG performance to further improve Evotec’s sustainable set-up.
The Head of Global IR & ESG reports directly to the CEO and has strong backing from the Supervisory Board. To further improve our sustainability governance, the Supervisory Board has implemented a dedicated ESG Committee since 2022. This Committee is responsible for ESG oversight and addresses ESG topics regularly in its meetings.
