Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio Bloomberg Intelligence
Speaker 1: Reporter earlier this year about e s G, saying it
Speaker 1: may surpass forty one trillion assets this year fifty trillion
Speaker 1: by five, making it one third of the projected total
Speaker 1: assets under management globally. Tim, It's a lot. It's what
Speaker 1: investors want, and we often talk with heads and leaders
Speaker 1: within companies about their growing E s G initiatives. One
Speaker 1: of those companies is CVS Health. Joe and Wier is
Speaker 1: Vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability at CVS Health.
Speaker 1: She joins us on Zoom from Rhode Island. Joeanne, good
Speaker 1: to have you with us. How are you? I'm doing well?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Tim? Hi, Carrol Hi well. Earlier this month,
Speaker 1: CVS Health published its first h s G report. Why
Speaker 1: was this the year to do this? Why now? So?
Speaker 1: This is actually our fifteenth annual report. Um. We used
Speaker 1: to call it our Corporate Social Responsibility Report, but as
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, uh, environmental and the social commitments that
Speaker 1: companies make in the way that companies govern them has
Speaker 1: really taken center stage in terms of the business community,
Speaker 1: and so when it comes to reporting into transparency, we
Speaker 1: felt it was important to change the nomenclature and really
Speaker 1: position it as an E s G report, highlighting those
Speaker 1: commitments that our company makes, what's top of line, and
Speaker 1: where do you see that you guys have made the
Speaker 1: most progress. We talked about E s G joan so much,
Speaker 1: and there's certain parts of E s G that are
Speaker 1: much easier for the world for investors to measure, but
Speaker 1: not all of it because it's not apples to apples
Speaker 1: from company to company. So talk to us about your
Speaker 1: initiatives and where you feel like you're making the most
Speaker 1: progress because you can measure it the best. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a really a few critical points to think
Speaker 1: about is, as you just said, you can't be all
Speaker 1: things to all people, and so it's important to do
Speaker 1: what's either called a materiality assessment or a topic prioritization,
Speaker 1: and we did that this year. So as a healthcare company,
Speaker 1: it won't surprise you that when you think about the
Speaker 1: issues we care about, their really centered on the health
Speaker 1: of people, the health of our communities, and the health
Speaker 1: of our planet. And so we set a ten year roadmap.
Speaker 1: I think the second really important thing to think about
Speaker 1: is you have to have near term goals, but you
Speaker 1: also have to have to be thinking about this in
Speaker 1: the long term to be able to have meaningful impact
Speaker 1: in the long range. And so we focus our strategy
Speaker 1: and four key areas. We have four pillars. It's our
Speaker 1: healthy strategy looking a decade out, and we're focused on
Speaker 1: healthy people, healthy business, healthy community, and healthy planet. I
Speaker 1: want to start with just talking about reducing waste, and
Speaker 1: can you give us some figures on how much you've
Speaker 1: reduced waste. So our commitment, I will say, to the
Speaker 1: environment really starts with our commitment to climate. So hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll get to that um. But our company is working
Speaker 1: on reducing our waste, starting with our paper and plastic,
Speaker 1: and so we've diverted about fifty of all of our
Speaker 1: waste to recycling or reuse. You are listening to Bloomberg Business.
Speaker 1: We Carl the US along with Tim Stanivik. We are
Speaker 1: talking about CVS Health annual e s G report, the
Speaker 1: latest one just out about e s G initiatives. More broadly,
Speaker 1: with Joe and Dwyer. She's VP of Corporate Social Responsibility
Speaker 1: and sustainability at CVS Health still with us via zoom
Speaker 1: from Rhode Island. Hey, you know, Joean, I do want
Speaker 1: to get back to what are the things that you
Speaker 1: can really measure so well so that you can say, hey,
Speaker 1: we are really making a constructive impact. So I think
Speaker 1: in our case, when you think about being a healthcare
Speaker 1: innovation company, we within our healthy People People pillar, we're
Speaker 1: really thinking about by now, from now to impacting sixty
Speaker 1: five billion healthcare interactions. And so that's you know, through
Speaker 1: our CDs pharmacy locations, are minute clinic locations, through our
Speaker 1: Ethna plans, through our care mark plans, and really making
Speaker 1: sure that healthcare is accessible and changing the way we
Speaker 1: think about healthcare. So it's on your corner, but it's
Speaker 1: also in the palm of your hand. And if you
Speaker 1: think about our commitments to community, we really want to
Speaker 1: fill the gaps of our commercial business. So ensuring that
Speaker 1: underserved and at risk populations have that same access to healthcare,
Speaker 1: advancing health equity and reducing disparities is really top of
Speaker 1: mind for us. So we're committing one point five billion
Speaker 1: dollars over the next ten years to ensure that we
Speaker 1: can reduce those disparities that we're seeing. How do you
Speaker 1: you know, because I always find right that we've had
Speaker 1: so many conversations Tim and I and our whole Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News team over the last couple of years because of COVID.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have had it as well as uh,
Speaker 1: George Floyd in terms of inclusivity. Um, but how what
Speaker 1: are the specific moves that really move the needle in
Speaker 1: terms of making sure that healthcare and your services get
Speaker 1: out to parts of our population that have been really
Speaker 1: left behind. I think two things are critical. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to recognize that even though there are people
Speaker 1: who may be under uninsured, there's also going to be
Speaker 1: people who have hesitancy in terms of the health care system.
Speaker 1: So we work really closely with community partners at the
Speaker 1: really local level, and so you know, we're not going
Speaker 1: to assume that everybody can get to a CBS to
Speaker 1: get vaccinated. We've put up pop up clinics and free
Speaker 1: clinics and community health centers and y m c a
Speaker 1: s around the country specifically referring to COVID. We also
Speaker 1: launched earlier this year an initiative called health Zones, and
Speaker 1: health Zones is really focused on addressing the key social
Speaker 1: determinants of health. So in addition to ensuring that people
Speaker 1: have actual access to healthcare, we want to make sure
Speaker 1: that they have transportation that gets them to those doctors appointments.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure that they have education that
Speaker 1: advances their health literacy and helps them to, you know,
Speaker 1: better understand how to achieve their best health. Affordable housing
Speaker 1: because as you can imagine, if you don't have housing,
Speaker 1: it's extremely difficult to care about your your and your
Speaker 1: family's health. And so we're really looking at housing, education,
Speaker 1: access to food UM, transportation UM, and so our health
Speaker 1: zones are really focused at the zip code level, so
Speaker 1: that we're not trying to boil the ocean. We're really
Speaker 1: trying to be really local and helping people find these services. Joan,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be cynical here, but this is
Speaker 1: a publicly traded company. You're responsible to shareholders. You think
Speaker 1: about top line in the bottom line, and the company
Speaker 1: c suite certainly does too. And I'm wondering how you
Speaker 1: can draw some sort of line from the initiatives that
Speaker 1: you take on an E. S G basis to the
Speaker 1: health of the business and helping the business grow I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if you think about it from a healthcare standpoint,
Speaker 1: reducing overall healthcare costs in the in the communities that
Speaker 1: we serve, reducing emergency room visits, that helps everybody, That
Speaker 1: helps our business, and that helps UM, you know obviously
Speaker 1: the communities that we serve. And if you think about it,
Speaker 1: from our commitments to the environment and specifically our goals
Speaker 1: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eliminate our reliance on
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emissions by the year, there is real risk
Speaker 1: related to climate um and weather related events that impact
Speaker 1: our business, you know, hurricanes, flood fires, those impact our
Speaker 1: business and cost us money. So the investments that we're
Speaker 1: making in those places are helping us UM, and I
Speaker 1: think our shareholders are asking us to be mindful of
Speaker 1: these things more and more. Well, and it's interesting too,
Speaker 1: and I think about you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that we've been kind of obsessing over, and maybe rightfully so,
Speaker 1: is you know, the SEC putting out rules that would
Speaker 1: require publicly traded companies, you know, to talk about climate
Speaker 1: related risks and metrics, you know, And so we are
Speaker 1: increasingly seeing regulators you know, step up to the plate
Speaker 1: and want to know more on this, how how does
Speaker 1: that impact what you are doing? And basically and basically
Speaker 1: it speaks to write transparency and investors increasingly, you are
Speaker 1: committing so much money, they really want to know if
Speaker 1: I'm making any s G investment, Am I really getting
Speaker 1: what I'm investing in? Yeah? And we're fortunate because we've been,
Speaker 1: you know, reporting our data, especially around climate for such
Speaker 1: a long time. But when you think about it, this
Speaker 1: doesn't just impact our company, It in impacts our broad
Speaker 1: supply chain also. And if you and if you think
Speaker 1: about what I was just talking about in terms of
Speaker 1: climate related events, there is substantive risk or can be
Speaker 1: substantive risk to your business. And so the SEC is saying,
Speaker 1: we really want you to think about that risk, and
Speaker 1: we want you to audit that risk the way you
Speaker 1: would either you know, the way you would audit other
Speaker 1: financial risks to your business. And so you know, just
Speaker 1: as you know at home, we want to wash our
Speaker 1: clothes in cold water, and we want to turn our
Speaker 1: lights off when we leave a room. At our size
Speaker 1: and scale, we're thinking about the things that impact us
Speaker 1: and that can help us save money but also can
Speaker 1: help us protect the planet in the long term. So
Speaker 1: when it comes to you say ten years, is it
Speaker 1: possibly you will do it all quicker because you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to so many E. S. G metrics,
Speaker 1: I think about what you talk about in terms of housing.
Speaker 1: The sooner we can do all of this, the better
Speaker 1: it is for so many members of our society. Is
Speaker 1: it likely that it's going to take ten years or
Speaker 1: can you do it quicker? So I think that we
Speaker 1: have Like I said earlier, it's really important to have
Speaker 1: near term goals and then also longer term goals. So
Speaker 1: if I think about our commitments in the energy space, yes,
Speaker 1: we want to you know, be we want to be complete.
Speaker 1: We have zero greenhouse gas emissions or net zero greenhouse
Speaker 1: gas emissions by the year twenty fifty. But that means
Speaker 1: we need to stop relying on carbon emissions by the
Speaker 1: year twenty and we need to dramatically invest in renewable
Speaker 1: energies between now and and So I think that there's
Speaker 1: going to be some quick wins. And if you think
Speaker 1: about it from the social side of things, the s
Speaker 1: side of things, we've invested somewhere, um, you know, in
Speaker 1: the range of two and forty million dollars in philanthropic
Speaker 1: investments in the year one to do just what you've referenced.
Speaker 1: So if you think about food security, that our investments
Speaker 1: in the area of food security provided a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty nine million meals for people who are food and secure,
Speaker 1: and of the meals are supporting those people who are
Speaker 1: racially diversed in food and secure, so that we're making
Speaker 1: sure that help is getting to people today. Well, we
Speaker 1: appreciate your time and just checking in with us and
Speaker 1: and getting an update on all the efforts you guys
Speaker 1: are doing. Joe and Dwyer, she's VP of Corporate Social
Speaker 1: Responsibility and Sustainability at CVS Health. Via zoom from Rhode Island,