“Philips Community Life Centers dragen bij aan de oplossing van een enorm probleem in afgelegen gebieden: hoge moeder- en kindersterfte”

The program is already impacting the lives of 240,000 women and 25,000 children, but Luc foresees further opportunities for growth. "What we do now for mother and child, we can of course also expand to other target groups. Think about care for the elderly in remote areas, care in the areas of diarrhea, malaria, respiratory problems; there is still a world to be won there as well."

The global partnership with UNFPA now allows Philips to scale up anywhere in the world. "We started a project last year to start applying the Congo model in other countries. The goal: to reduce the mortality rate of newborn babies in remote areas by 50 percent within five years."

Since 2020, the project has also received support from the Dutch Financing Agency for Developing Countries to set up complex programs on a large scale in Africa. "We knew from the beginning that this kind of initiative is a long-term issue. But the fact that we have been able to make these great strides in recent years, despite the pandemic - which severely hampered the implementation of projects in practice - that offers a great deal of hope for the future."

In the series Sustainability in Action, we explore the stories and people behind Philips' sustainability goals. Who are the people who make sure every day that Philips' ambitions in the areas of good health & well-being, responsible consumption & production and climate are met?
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Philips aims to improve 2.5 billion lives by 2030; how and why do we measure it? Robert Metzke, Head of Sustainability, explains why Philips sets itself sustainability targets and how the results are measured and calculated.

Teddy Heerbaart is one of the people in Philips Circular Equipment who work hard every day to stimulate the re-use of parts of medical systems, such as MRI scanners: "We give medical equipment a second, and sometimes even a third life"

"At the very first design sketch you already have to think about circularity." Together with her team, Design Strategist Aylin Groenewoud is working every day to make Philips' products and services even greener.