Earth Day 2021: A moment to reflect, celebrate and – most importantly – dream big

By Dominique Laymand, Executive Vice President, Ethics and Social Responsibility Officer

This week, we're celebrating Earth Day, a global initiative first launched in 1970 to celebrate our planet and highlight the importance of preserving it. Now 51 years on, the topic is more important than ever.

In my role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Executive Vice-President at Ipsen, I'm proud to spearhead many initiatives that help reduce our company's impact on the environment. Powered by the dedication of our large network of company social responsibility (CSR) ambassadors and 5,700 employees, we're driving positive change for our earth. A great example is a new initiative which our Italian colleagues are going to launch tomorrow with Treedom, a local organization focused on making the world a greener place. Together, we'll be planting a forest in Kenya which will absorb 188,500 KG of CO₂ over the next ten years and simultaneously support local agricultural activities.

It's critically important for me as a leader, and for Ipsen as a company, that our CSR efforts are more than an accumulation of disparate initiatives. Ethical culture and CSR are a pivotal part of our new group strategy Focus.Together. For patients & society. and play a crucial role in realizing our mission of improving patients' lives and health outcomes. We have a strong purpose of driving positive impact for patients and society and it's important that this purpose influences our actions and impacts our business decisions day in and day out.

With that in mind, we've defined a strong CSR strategy based on three pillars: Employees, Communities and the Environment. We have established clear objectives and KPIs for each of these three pillars on the global scale and are working actively with our local teams to achieve them: We aim to care and deliver for our employees, encourage diversity and inclusion and support an open and respectful culture. For our communities, we want to provide innovative solutions based on trusted relationships and shared commitments. And we are working to protect our environment and make our activities safer and more sustainable.

I'm honored that we're seeing these efforts are being recognized. For example, French magazine Le Point also named us one of the most responsible companies in their 2021 ranking.

However, there is so much more to do and so much more to tackle. I was astonished to read research from the energy and sustainability think tank The Shift Project highlighting that every year, our carbon footprint linked to the use of digital technologies grows by 8% every year!

As the world changes, so will our priorities for preserving our earth. It may feel daunting or overwhelming, but even small steps can have an impact and it's important to take that first step. I strongly believe that if you don't do anything, you won't achieve anything. André Malraux, a 20^th century French novelist and politician, once said that great dreams lead people to great deeds. It's my dream to encourage younger generations and women in particular to leverage their talents and achieve their potential - and what better day to make a start than Earth Day!