Sustainability
Our commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
To demonstrate our broader commitment to sustainability, in October 2020 we applied to become a signatory to the UN Global Compact (UNGC). By demonstrating our ongoing commitment to the UNGC’s Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, we’re substantially advancing our vital work towards meeting the SDGs.
We fully subscribe to the objectives of the 17 goals and have identified where we have the most impact. While SDG 3 – “Good health and wellbeing” – is core to a business, we contribute to six others.
Our core proposition is geared towards the goal of global good health. Abcam’s mission and purpose help advance the global understanding of biology and causes of disease. Our products and partnerships enable scientific breakthroughs that lead to the development of the medicines and treatments of tomorrow.
Our products and purpose both advance education and scientific understanding. We support young people to study STEM subjects and enter scientific careers through our relationships with charities and our programme of continuous learning and development contribute to the advancement of the scientific community.
Our flexible working policies for all, a continued focus on gender pay parity, and our Employee Relations Groups all help make Abcam an attractive place for women in science and business. This year 67% of promotions to senior leadership positions were for women, and 62% of external hires into our most senior job levels were women. We will build on our success to make Abcam a more diverse and inclusive place for everyone.
Abcam’s provision of rewarding work that has a positive impact is brought to life best through Abshare. The scheme gives employees the opportunity to contribute a percentage of their pay in order to buy the company, with more than 90% of colleagues now taking part globally.
This year, the launch of our new range of Knock Out engineered cell lines offers the global scientific community ready access to engineered cell lines in commonly used immortalised cancer cell lines such as Hela and HEK293T.
Abcam’s approach to managing raw materials, supplier relations and logistics, is outlined in our supplier code. The introduction of client management systems, including Oracle, over the past 12 months will make it easier for partners to work together efficiently.
Our negative impact on the planet is low, we want to make it lower. We have mapped our own environmental footprint and are in the process of mapping downstream emissions, all the while taking steps to increase recyclable packaging and simplify logistics.
To inform where we can best maximise positive impact and minimise negative impact for sustainability, we mapped the seven SDGs across our value chain.
We identified four meta-trends and 17 issues of material importance to us and our stakeholders.
Our sustainability framework weaves together our purpose, culture and strategy, and sets out our priority areas.
I am immensely proud of the work we do, the discoveries we enable through our customers, the contribution we make to science, and to the lives and communities we support.