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Message Senior management

Christopher A. Viehbacher Chief Executive Officer

Gilles Lhernould Senior Vice President Corporate Social Responsibility

What CSR challenges is the Group facing?

Christopher A. Viehbacher (CV): Corporate Social Responsibility is a subject that is complex, encompasses many aspects of our business and ultimately affects the lives of people around the world. The primary area where we can and do have an impact is in healthcare. We have the expertise and resources to make a real difference. We have, as in some other companies, a comprehensive access to medicines department but we go much further. The real challenge of our time is access to healthcare itself – improving the infrastructures, the health policies, the pricing programs and boosting the local economy are all areas where we have seen we can make a change and therefore where we will continue to concentrate our efforts.

The effect we have on the environment is another key challenge. We need to have the most positive and the least negative effect. To this end, we have put in place a number of teams to ensure we do not just meet standards, but go beyond them. A particular focus is to reduce the consumption of gas and oil in our sites, increase the use of greener technologies and reduce the environmental footprint and costs.

Gilles Lhernould (GL): As part of our commitment to acting ethically and to supporting employees during the Group’s transformation, we support our people in every way we can to best manage any impact that is caused and to help them through the process and beyond. An example of this includes the provision of outplacement opportunities, training programs and various measures to help employees impacted by change. For example, Sanofi’s business “start-up” unit in France assists employees who wish to create their own business.

What are the areas where you feel Sanofi’s CSR approach is making the greatest impact?

CV: Simply put, in healthcare. Over the years we have developed deep partnerships with key stakeholders to improve access to healthcare for the poorest of populations. We have significant drug and vaccine donation programs for example through our Sanofi Espoir Foundation, our commitment to the Polio Eradication Initiative and vaccination programs for yellow fever with GAVI. We work with individual countries to support access through tiered pricing programs such as we have in Africa for malaria.

Our partnership with the WHO is one I am particularly proud of. We established this in 2001 and it has evolved over the years to include Buruli Ulcer, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis. But the main focus has been sleeping sickness and the results speak for themselves. Since 2001, we have screened over 2 million patients for the disease, which is usually fatal if left untreated. We have diagnosed and treated 170,000 patients. Early in 2012, we reconfirmed our commitment to WHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Neglected Tropical Diseases with a primary goal to eliminate Sleeping Sickness by 2020. We are on track to achieve this.

In 2011, we also signed a 3-year research agreement with DNDi for nine NTDs and we signed up to the WIPO Consortium (World Intellectual Property Organization). Through these partnerships we will share valuable intellectual property and expertise to enable faster development of more effective treatments in NTDs.

But where we further differ from others is the work we do in the broader healthcare arena. We have been present in over 100 countries for many decades and we provide our expertise and resources to advise on and support better health infrastructure. For example, we have worked with some African governments and agencies on developing specific health policies for their country. Equally, training and compliance has become a focus. A good example is our work in TB, where completing treatment is vital to a full recovery. In South Africa, we have trained healthcare physicians and nurses on how to diagnose and treat, we have set up clinics to ensure patients are monitored correctly and we provide the educational resources to ensure patients understand the importance of completing treatment.

Supporting the local economy by manufacturing locally where possible is also a focus. We have 7 manufacturing sites in Africa which produce 60% the Group’s needs for the continent. We also have a vaccines plant in India, Shantha, which means we can produce our vaccines at a lower price for the developing markets.

In terms of our progress environmentally, we are in good shape. We reduced our CO₂ emissions by 15%, two years ahead of plan. We just signed a 3-year partnership with Cofely, GDF SUEZ group, covering the construction of energy production and distribution facilities for all our manufacturing sites in continental Europe. It will use innovative technologies and work towards developing renewable energy. In 2007 we installed solar panels in Ambares and in 2009, in Quetigny, a French site. This program was extended in 2011 and once completed will mean 22,000m2 of solar panels on 5 sites in France.

GL: Our CSR approach also makes a difference when it comes to diversity, which is a source of strength and is critical to performance and innovation – this is why diversity and equal opportunity are included in the Sanofi Code of Ethics. As part of our commitment to promoting gender balance, the Group was once again a premium sponsor of the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society. Today 45% of Sanofi managers are women, and the percentage of women on the Board of Directors has increased to 20%.

Our attention to ensuring employees’ health and safety also paid off, because we lowered our lost time injury frequency rate for the sixth consecutive year, reaching a record low of 1.8.

Currently, we are preparing the global CSR correspondents convention for our CSR correspondent networks: we’ll continue to provide in-depth information about the Group’s CSR priorities and the sharing of best practices, so that our CSR strategy is implemented in every Sanofi organization across the globe. We are also very proud of the launch of the Sanofi Global CSR Awards in 2012.

What about the future?

CV: There is still a lot of work to do to ensure we leave this planet in good shape for future generations and improve the health of as many as we can reach.

In each of the four pillars, we have new initiatives for 2012 and beyond. For example, we now have a 2020 goal to reduce our CO₂ emissions by 20%; we have a new five-year HSE plan to ensure high standards and guidelines for continuing improvements and we are developing Key Performance Indicators to assess implementation of the Group’s CSR strategy.

We will continue to work tirelessly on improving access to healthcare builling on all our successes, experiences and expertise. And, as an innovation-based biopharmaceutical player, we will do our utmost to continue to innovate for patients, wherever they may be.

GL: In 2012, we will continue to focus on the Group’s 12 CSR priorities by integrating CSR even more solidly into our strategy and by spreading the word. The Key Performance Indicators will help us better identify areas for improvement so we can focus our efforts where they will make the most impact. These will not only help us assess our performance; they will help us to better respond to stakeholders’ needs.

For more information::

• Our 12 key CSR priorities