UN SDG Commitments
UN SDG Commitments

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a global framework for progress toward a more sustainable future. In trying to determine the unique impact Johnson & Johnson would contribute to the global community to create a healthier, more equitable world, we developed a clear, pragmatic process to create a commitment to accelerate the SDGs that reflects our unique constellation of strengths. The Company’s commitment is focused in five areas in which Johnson & Johnson is positioned to create sustainable and scalable impact: health workforce, women’s and children’s health, essential surgery, global disease challenges, and environmental health.

We aim to mobilize and inspire employees, consumers, communities, and our global network to improve health globally. While we aim to achieve outcomes in all of the Company’s work, the identified targets for the SDG commitment are reflective of the Company’s reach - individuals whose lives may benefit from our combined efforts with our partners. To that end, we developed a measurement reporting framework that involves the annual tracking of progress towards focus area targets, ensuring accountability of our work. The Company’s SDG commitment focuses on SDGs 3, 5 and 17.

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On track: expected to meet the Goal by 2020
In progress: so far progressing more slowly than expected; plans are in place to meet the Goal by 2020
Off track: not progressing as expected; currently at risk of not meeting the Goal by 2020

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UN SDG Progress Scorecard 2017
Aspiration 5-Year Target (2016 - 2020) Progress (first year of reporting includes 2016 & 2017 numbers) Notable
Health Workforce
Women’s & Children’s Health
Essential Surgery
Global Disease Challenges
Environmental Health
Challenges of reporting and assuring progress against the SDG goals
Collaboration is at the heart of the SDGs - these ambitious goals cannot be achieved by one party alone but involve governments, business and communities working together to achieve significant sustainability impacts and improvements to people’s lives. We believe our commitment to partnership and collaboration helps us to achieve extraordinary results, even though quantifying impacts and benefits across many partnerships is complex.

We have therefore reported and sought assurance on the progress against the five-year targets that support our SDG goals. We have reported on progress based on the best information we have available - from our operations and those of our partners. However, we recognize that because of the nature of the projects supporting the targets, the data are subject to limitations, including estimates, extrapolations and reliance on data and information provided by a broad range of partners that we work with to achieve these goals. For certain goals, assumptions are used that could result in an overstatement or understatement of lives benefited when trying to quantify performance in challenging environments. We summarize below some key information to provide our stakeholders with some insight into the challenges of reporting SDG goal performance.

Additionally, a few of our Health for Humanity 2020 Goals include programs (e.g., skilled birth attendants training and VERMOX treatments) are also a subset of our SDG Commitment.

Health Workforce, Women’s and Children’s Health
Many of our programs are co-funded, and while we make every effort to report only beneficiaries/healthcare professionals reached by our portion of the program, sometimes that is not possible. We do not have a direct line of sight to the data collection processes, as the data are gathered by our partners on the ground. Some of our partners have data quality assurance protocols, but some do not. For the purposes of our reporting, we assume each pregnant woman bears one infant - we do not use an estimation factor to discount for stillbirths or add for multiple births. We also do not have 100% reporting, which means we may have some undercounting. We are working to improve the data collection systems used to communicate with our partners (where possible) to obtain more accurate data.

Essential Surgery
A large part of the data and progress for this goal comes from the work we undertake with The Medical and Surgical Skills Institute (MSSI) in Ghana. The MSSI reports the numbers, nationalities and disciplines of medical professionals that complete each MSSI course. However, estimating the number of patients benefiting from the skills and knowledge obtained in a course requires the use of estimates and extrapolations to account for the number of patients treated per week, potential duplicate visits (e.g., same patient being seen by a doctor and a nurse trained by MSSI), and the retention time for the knowledge gained. We have used conservative estimates for knowledge retention (one year) and have not included the potential for the multiplier effect of the “train-the-trainer,” where trained medical professionals go on to train others. We will be seeking ways to improve the data quality in future years.

Global Disease Challenges
When it comes to quantifying the progress against this goal, a large part of the data comes from the number of VERMOX doses donated, measured through the number of doses shipped. The underlying assumption is that countries receiving VERMOX donations administer two doses to their school-aged children each year.

Environmental Health
Success in achieving the desired impact for this goal depends on C40 city members initiating climate actions before 2020. In order to achieve the scale of impact, actions need to be ambitious and, therefore, take time to develop and implement. C40 is working with the current administrations of their city members to support their planned actions; however, there is always a risk that actions do not get implemented because of changes in wider city circumstances (e.g., political or funding changes). We will aim to manage this risk by focusing on ambitious actions with larger-scale impact spread across a number of cities, conducting careful vetting of proposed projects, and making city participation as easy as possible.
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