Sustainability

Sustainability highlights

AstraZeneca received several prestigious recognitions for its sustainability leadership in the quarter. TIME Magazine named AstraZeneca one of the World’s Most Sustainable Companies for the third consecutive year, ranking it as the third most sustainable pharmaceutical company, and the Financial Times featured AstraZeneca in its 2026 Europe’s Climate Leaders list for the sixth consecutive year, ranking it as the top pharmaceutical company for climate action. AstraZeneca also ranked in Gartner’s Supply Chain Top 25, which includes ESG criteria, for the fourth consecutive year and as the highest-ranked pharmaceutical company for the second year running.

At the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, the AstraZeneca delegation led by Chair Michel Demaré and EVP International, Iskra Reic, engaged more than 100 stakeholders, including over 30 government officials, to advance action related to health equity and health systems resilience. The delegation participated in over 10 government and partner-co-hosted events, including a flagship Lung Health event; a panel on implementing the WHO’s 2025 Rare Disease resolution; a roundtable on rare disease in Asia; and a roundtable on Chronic Kidney Diseases.

Climate and nature

The Company achieved milestones related to clean heat:

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In March, AstraZeneca launched a supplier decarbonisation programme with Secaro and ERM to support clean heat adoption across its supplier network, which was profiled in Forbes.

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In April, the renewable natural gas (RNG) facility supplying AstraZeneca’s US R&D and manufacturing sites was formally commissioned, with Virginia state leaders in attendance.

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In June, a partnership to supply renewable liquified natural gas (RLNG) to the Company’s Puerto Rico site was announced.

The Company achieved gold status in the Government of Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Net-Zero Challenge, becoming the first pharmaceutical company in Canada to reach this tier.

In the UK, AstraZeneca was named Green Business of the Year by the British Business Awards and also received the 2026 Society for Chemical Industry (SCI) Sustainability Award for reducing solvent use, in recognition of the Company’s setting a new benchmark in environmental stewardship in pre-clinical chemistry.

Health equity

AstraZeneca advanced its focus on health equity in science through two strategic genomics partnerships which provide access to large-scale datasets representing more than 520,000 participants globally, including from underserved communities.

In the US, the Company delivered its first clinical trial awareness event for underserved areas in Baltimore. AstraZeneca’s global clinical trial website was made available in Portuguese and Vietnamese, in alignment with Company’s Health equity priority countries.

In May 2026, Healthy Heart Africa (HHA) formalised its first Memorandum of Understanding with Morocco’s Ministry of Health, marking a strategic partnership with PATH to expand into Morocco.

Through the Young Health Programme (YHP), AstraZeneca continued to strengthen community impact, expanding work with NGO partners to advance NCD prevention and health equity for young people. This included partnerships in Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Kenya, Malaysia and Spain. The programme received external recognition in Vietnam with a Certificate of Merit by the Ministry of Education & Training.

By July, AstraZeneca’s Cancer Care Africa (CCA) initiative had supported cancer screening for over 328,000 patients and trained over 28,000 oncology healthcare professionals, since 2024. Key CCA achievements during the first half of 2026 include an international multidisciplinary team (MDT) collaboration to reduce variability in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) care across Ministry of Health (MoH) centres in Egypt and expansion of local diagnostic capacity in Kenya to now include BRCA testing.

Health systems resilience

Following the publication of the Canada roadmap in March, the Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience (PHSSR) launched new country policy roadmaps on acting early on NCDs for France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Japan. AstraZeneca supported through input on evidence-based, country-specific policy recommendations and activation of key stakeholders during launch.

In Germany, the PHSSR roadmap on early action for NCDs underscored the importance of ensuring broad access to innovative medicines in the context of ongoing health reforms, covered in the Tagesspiegel Background.

AstraZeneca announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Northern Ireland’s Department of Health, Department for the Economy and the Health Innovation Research Alliance Northern Ireland (HIRANI), to facilitate earlier, community-based intervention to improve patient outcomes and address health inequalities.