Social Impact and Sustainability
Alcon aspires to improve lives, strengthen communities and create long-term value by innovating products that improve sight. Our strategy leads with our commitment to enable communities to access critical eye care services so that everyone can See Brilliantly. It is focused on three areas — Brilliant Lives, Brilliant Innovation and Brilliant Planet — and includes social and environmental impact goals to hold ourselves accountable and measure progress.
Brilliant Lives
With our partner organizations, we enable communities to access critical eye care services.
Brilliant Innovation
Our diverse talent from around the world innovates best-in-class products that change lives.
Brilliant Planet
We care for our planet by focusing on reducing emissions and waste.
Social Impact and Sustainability Goals
Social Impact Goals
By 2025, Alcon’s philanthropic support and training programs will help improve vision for 5 million people afflicted with untreated cataracts in low- and middle-income countries, including 1 million considered cataract-blind.
By 2025, Alcon associates will help improve vision and enhance academic success by conducting 150,000 vision screenings to children and ensuring comprehensive care for those in need.
Environmental Impact Goals
By 2030, Alcon will become carbon neutral across global operations (Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions).
By 2030, Alcon will divert 100% of non-hazardous waste generated at manufacturing sites and distribution centers from landfill.
Foundational to Our Strategy
World-Class Talent, Inclusive Culture, Safety, Ethics and Integrity, Strong Governance
Social Impact and Sustainability Report
Read about our progress and performance:
Brilliant Lives
Alcon is working toward a world where treatable, preventable conditions affecting eye health receive the attention they need. More than 1.1 billion people are living with uncorrected vision impairment — 90% of whom live in low- and middle-income countries.1 Alcon helps our partners enable communities to access critical eye care services so that everyone can See Brilliantly regardless of geography, gender, age or socioeconomic status.
Alcon Cares and Alcon Foundation
Our two charitable foundations — Alcon Cares and the Alcon Foundation — provide product, equipment and monetary donations to our charitable partners to help increase access to quality eye care around the world. The Alcon Foundation’s Children’s Vision Program provides comprehensive eye exams and follow-up care to students who need it most in our communities.
Training and Education
Through our Phaco Development program, Alcon associates work with ophthalmic teaching institutions to increase the standard of cataract care in low- to middle-income countries by educating surgeons on phaco procedures. Since the program’s inception in 2008, more than 6,000 trained surgeons have gone on to perform more than 10.9 million sight-enhancing or -restoring phaco procedures across China, India, Russia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam and South Africa.
Associate Engagement
Alcon associates help strengthen our global communities through volunteerism and monetary gifts. Through our Alcon in Action program, thousands of associates donate their time to organizations across the globe. Associates can also make monetary donations to nonprofits of their choosing through Alcon-provided giving platforms. In the United States, we offer dollar-for-dollar matching donations up to $500 per associate per year. In 2022, Alcon associates supported the Children’s Vision Program by screening 34,460 students, making progress toward our goal to conduct 150,000 screenings by 2025.
Our Impact
In 2022, we set a goal to provide philanthropic support and training programs to help improve vision for 5 million people afflicted with untreated cataracts in low- and middle-income countries, including 1 million considered cataract blind by 2025. Through the work of Alcon Cares, the Alcon Foundation and Phaco Development (PD) program, we helped improve vision for more than 1.17 million2 individuals in 2022, making strong initial progress toward our ultimate goal.
Learn more about the Alcon Foundation and Alcon Cares.
Learn more about our overall efforts in the Brilliant Lives section of the Social Impact and Sustainability Report.
Brilliant Innovation
Our diverse talent and culture of continuous improvement drive Alcon’s innovation, resulting in best-in-class products that change lives and are more sustainable, increase efficiencies and enhance patient safety. Through innovation, strong economic value propositions and engagement with healthcare decision-makers, we strive to provide all patients and consumers with the quality eye care they deserve.
Research and Development Investments
In 2022, Alcon invested $702 million in research and development (R&D) and had more than 100 pipeline products under development, including 71 that have achieved positive proof of concept or are undergoing regulatory review.
Inclusive Design
We intentionally incorporate inclusive design principles to help ensure equitable access and use of our products. Our Legion® Phaco Systems are smaller and more portable, making them better suited for operating rooms in emerging markets. We design some of our surgical instruments for surgeons with different hand sizes, including our Finesse® Reflex Handle.
Embedding Sustainability Into Products
Our Environmental Sustainability Scorecard (ESS) considers factors like water and energy use, GHG emissions and waste generated. In 2022, 100% of new R&D projects in the feasibility stage generated an ESS.
Learn more about our innovation work on our website and in the Brilliant Innovation section of the Social Impact and Sustainability Report.
Brilliant Planet
Alcon cares for our planet and helps create a more sustainable world so everyone can Live Brilliantly. Because we manufacture about 90% of our products internally, we are able to manage our environmental footprint through efficiency and optimization to reduce emissions, water, waste and chemicals of concern. Our global environmental sustainability strategy focuses on four priority topics: sustainable products and services, energy efficiency and GHG reduction, operational waste reduction and water stewardship.
Improving Product Impact
For our products, we’re working to reduce packaging waste and eliminate chemicals of concern where feasible. Many of our products must be single-use for patient safety. Some of the ways we strive to minimize our environmental impact include offsetting initiatives and finding more efficient ways to pack and ship our products. In 2022, approximately 100 metric tons of devices and equipment were reused, recycled or donated.
Reducing Operational Impact
In our operations, our goal is to achieve carbon neutrality (scope 1 and 2) by 2030 by investing in renewable energy and implementing energy efficiency measures. We also have a goal to divert 100% of our non-hazardous waste generated at manufacturing sites, and in 2022 achieved a diversion rate of 95.85%. Our Vision Care and Surgical operations sites also implemented 37 energy projects that saved approximately 71,619 gigajoules and 22 water projects that saved approximately 334,000 megaliters.
Learn more in the Brilliant Planet section of the Social Impact and Sustainability Report and on our Responsible Business Practices.
Recognition
- Certified Great Place to Work - Great Place to Work Institute (U.S., Ireland, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand)
- Top Employer - Top Employers Institute (Brazil, China, France, Poland, Spain and Switzerland)
- Best Workplace in Texas - Fortune
- Best Place To Work For LGBTQ+ Equality - Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index
- Top Company for Sponsorship - DiversityInc
Learn more about our recognitions on Alcon Careers.
REFERENCES
- IAPB, Vision Atlas - The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (iapb.org)
- This metric includes 21,523 Alcon Cares - and Alcon Foundation-supported cataract surgeries and an estimated 1,157,860 individuals receiving cataract surgery through phaco procedures in 2022.