In Sweden, the Sweden Governance Group (SGG) owns the national CR strategy, priority action plan, and associated targets. SGG are supported by a dedicated CR function, which leads the development and implementation of CR across Sweden. The Swedish action plan tracks the Global Priority Action Plan, with particular emphasis on those issues that are receiving increased public attention locally, redundancy, outsourcing, value of medicines, research conditions, access to medicines in developing countries, students’ interest in science, pharmaceuticals in the environment, animal research and climate change.

During 2007, AstraZeneca Sweden held a meeting with leaders from Sweden´s six major universities. The overall purpose was to increase mutual understanding of the research conditions within academia and industry respectively. The parties agreed to facilitate future research collaboration and jointly engage in EU research activities. Other areas of common interest were identified such as bio-banks, databases, translation research, health information technology and education and training. This meeting built on our activity in 2006 in which we held two formal external dialogues in Sweden - one focused on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (PIE) and the other on animal research.

The PIE dialogue involved representatives from the external research community, local authorities and nongovernmental organisations and they helped us reinforce our understanding of the expectations in this area. These include the need for continued proactivity, collaboration, openness and integration of PiE considerations into the drug development process, and this is informing the global programme of work. The animal research dialogue focused on the role of animal testing in medical research and the use of alternatives. The meeting involved representatives from animal welfare and animal rights organisations, patient groups, politicians and government officials, and research scientists. Although no consensus could be reached, the participants welcomed AstraZeneca’s openness and willingness to bring together the various key interest groups to discuss the subject.

Our rolling programme of CR workshops for leaders in Sweden continues with some 117 senior managers attending such events in 2007. To make sure that our responsibilities are appreciated and understood by new recruits to the Company, a mandatory CR session is integrated into all induction courses across our sites in Sweden.

We continue to communicate with employees to build understanding and commitment. This includes an internal website, ‘AZ in the Debate’, which provides employees in Sweden with information about CR matters and actively encourages dialogue on the issues presented and any others they may wish to raise. During 2007, we strengthened employee awareness by producing a second edition of ‘AZ in the Debate’ that included emerging issues, such as workforce reductions, to reflect the current challenges of our business environment. ‘AZ in the Debate’ is available online and we also distributed 12,000 printed copies to employees during the year.

We continue to increase the number of 'Flex Fuel' vehicles used by our sales force in Sweden. These vehicles can be powered by either petrol or ethanol - a non-fossil fuel from renewable resources, which has much lower impact on climate change than petrol. Our 100 ‘Flex Fuel’ cars have the potential to deliver a reduction in CO₂ emissions each year of around 400 tonnes. Alongside driver safety courses, we also provide eco-driving training for our sales representatives to help drivers decrease fuel consumption, resulting in a more than 5% reduction during 2007.

In order to stimulate conversations around diversity and equal opportunities, Human Resources in Sweden has developed, together with representatives from the unions and management, a Diversity Dialogue tool. The first dialogue was carried out during 2007 and the programme will be rolled out across the Swedish organisation during 2008.

Some examples of AstraZeneca's community support in Sweden

During 2007, AstraZeneca, together with the Swedish Heart and Lung Association ran a photo-exhibition campaign, “Ten women with COPD”. Focused on encouraging early diagnosis and smoking cessation, the exhibition shows patients managing their disease and enjoying life. The photographer is one of Sweden’s most well known female photographers. The exhibition has been shown in 18 different places in Sweden as well as printed in several daily newspapers - reaching a total of more than 4.2 billion people. During the year, we also donated superfluous laboratory equipment from our Molndal facility to the African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology, AiBST focus on drug discovery, development and optimum clinical use of medicines in Africa in areas of malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS and other tropical diseases. Each year, we hold a summer science school at two of our sites in Sweden, designed to stimulate and develop interest in science among young people by showing them first-hand how we conduct our research. AstraZeneca worked in partnership with Sweden’s National Science Discovery Centre (Universeum), to develop a permanent exhibit demonstrating the drug development process. The interactive exhibit provides a fun and user-friendly opportunity for teenagers to really “get inside” the complexities behind discovering and developing a new medicine. For more information about our community projects and other areas of CR commitment in Sweden visit AstraZeneca Sweden online