Philips’ Human Rights Report 2023 – continued progress

Upholding human rights is a critical component of doing business responsibly and sustainably, and forms a key element of the company’s Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) framework that guides our business strategy. 

Philips’ 2023 Human Rights Report, published in advance of Human Rights Day on December 10, details the company’s commitment to upholding human rights and its progress over the last year. 

Mitigating and addressing operations and supply chain risk

For the last five years, Philips’ Human Rights Impact Assessment program has focused on gaining insights, fostering constructive dialog, and mitigating potential risks to the human rights of Philips employees. Having expanded the program in 2022, in 2023, Philips conducted Human Rights Impact Assessments at its sites in Pune (India) and Varginha (Brazil), living up to its commitment of conducting HRIAs at 100% of its at-risk sites by 2023. As the company looks to the future, its primary focus is on enhancing these sites through a dedicated emphasis on maturity and capability building. 

As a responsible business, Philips is committed to securing a strong, stable and sustainable supply chain to enable us to improve people’s health and well-being. As part of this, it has pledged to improve the lives of one million workers in the supply chain by 2025. The company’s Supplier Sustainability Performance program, implemented in 2016, has resulted in improved labor conditions, reduced the risk of serious injury and lowered the negative environmental impact of our suppliers. Philips also continues to invest in strengthening supplier diversity, with a goal to double total spend on diverse-owned suppliers based in North America by 2024. 

Building a more diverse and inclusive company 

Philips continues to strengthen its efforts to build a more inclusive culture, where people are valued and accepted for who they are, and where everyone can be themselves. 

Full and equal participation of women is crucial for fostering innovation, productivity, and sustainable economic growth. In 2023, Philips continued to move closer to its goal of 35% gender diversity in senior leadership positions by 2025, with women today representing 31% of those roles. In September of this year, to further strengthen the company’s commitment to gender equality, Philips’ CEO Roy Jakobs signed the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), which offer guidance to businesses on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace and community.

But it’s not just gender diversity where we the company is focusing its efforts. Employee Resource Groups provide an inclusive space for employees and are becoming an increasingly important mechanism to drive progress across our organisation. Building on an inaugural mentoring pilot in partnership with the Black Employee Resource Group in 2022, which aimed to raise awareness and combat racism, a second program was concluded in 2023 in partnership with the Black, Latin, and Asian Employee Resource Groups.  

Striving to increase healthcare accessibility

Health is a fundamental human right. Yet half the world’s population lacks access to the health services they need – and global pressures like climate change, conflict, disease outbreaks, and the rise of chronic diseases are disrupting health systems and slowing progress toward health for all.

As a leader in health technology, Philips can help make a difference by improving access to sustainable healthcare. 

Collaboration between the public and private sectors is critical to driving meaningful impact, and is a core feature of delivering on Philips’ purpose and ESG commitments. Through shared-value partnerships, the company is creating innovative digital solutions and new business and financing models that are both sustainable and scalable. 

In November, Philips announced additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who it has worked with since 2021 to accelerate global development of AI algorithms on the Philips Lumify Handheld Ultrasound. The AI algorithms simplify six key measurements during pregnancy, and early results in Kenya have shown that the technology has helped drive better-informed decision-making when triaging pregnant women. The new funding boost will support further development of the tool for underserved communities globally. Philips is also responsibly embedding AI and data science in its propositions to aid clinical decision making, expand healthcare access, and improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services – especially in medically underserved communities.