Sustainability highlights

At Life Healthcare Group we recognise sustainable development as a key strategic focus for the long-term viability of our business. Sustainable development is a strategic tool that enables us to incorporate the creation of social, environmental and economic value into our strategy and day-to-day operations for long term sustainability. We believe that sustainable development makes business sense, while also being good for our people and our planet.

We understand that for our business to grow sustainably, we have a duty to develop our people, enhance stakeholder value and minimise the impact of our operations on the environment. We are aware that it is critical in today’s world to identify, understand, and manage material ESG impacts.

While as a Group we are in the early phase of our sustainability journey, we are delighted to have attained a significant milestone with the awarding of the 5-Star Green Star Office Design rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa for our new head office. This internationally recognised award is an indication of our commitment to protecting our people and our planet.

We also received an ‘AAA’ rating from MSCI ESG Research (2020: ‘A’) placing Life Healthcare in a best-in-class category within the global healthcare sector.

	2021
FTSE/JSE Responsible investment index score	3.3
Sustainalytics ESG score (Risk rating = Low 10 – 20, Med 20 – 30, High 30 – 40)	24.4
MSCI ESG Research Inc. rating	AAA

Our approach to sustainability as an international corporate citizen is guided by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) requirements and the United Nations – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are integrated within our own Global Code of Conduct.

Life Healthcare intends to set sustainability targets for the Group during 2022. The targets will be based on the material issues relevant to the nature of our business and our operating environment. The sustainability targets will become the driving tool for our business to attain strategic Group ESG goals.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

As part of understanding our impact on the environment, we have been measuring various environmental factors for a number of years. As we progress towards developing our environment goals and related targets in 2022, we will use 2021 as a baseline and as such are publishing some of the metrics below for the first time.

The diesel usage in our business relates to the requirement for us to have two back-up diesel generators at all of our hospital facilities so that we can continue to operate throughout the rolling electricity blackouts we experience regularly in South Africa. This is an imperative from a sustainability perspective, but the trade-off is that it has a negative environmental impact.

In our effort to become less reliant on grid-tied electricity, we have installed solar panels at 15 of our facilities over the last five years, and further installations are planned in the future. These solar installations have helped to reduce the Group’s dependence on grid-tied electricity by c.5%.

A total of 13 of the solar installations were developed by Fibon Energy, a renewable energy company based in Johannesburg. The appointment of Fibon Energy forms part of Life Healthcare’s empowerment strategy to harness corporate growth and inclusive development opportunities in a sustainable manner.

Our solar panel installations have:

Below is a summary of our key environmental data from our South African operations. For a more complete dataset, please refer to our separate Sustainability complementary data report which is available on our website.

Life Healthcare emissions data*	UOM	2021
Scope 1	tCO2e	2 869
Scope 2	tCO2e	142 922
Scope 3	tCO2e	3 471

* This data refers to South Africa only.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT*

KPI	Description	UOM	2021
Total non-renewable energy used	HFO	L	415 472
	Petrol	L	100 758
	Diesel	L	364 067
	LPG	Kg	108 773
Total renewable energy used	Solar PV	kWh	7 821 437
Electricity used	Purchased	kWh	150 444 359
Total electricity used		kWh	158 265 796
Renewable energy consumption as a % of total energy consumption		%	5.2

Water management*

KPI	UOM	2021	2020	2019
Total water withdrawn	Kl	1 274 035	997 867	913 090
Total water withdrawn - municipal	Kl	1 059 690	997 867	913 090
Total water withdrawn - borehole	Kl	214 345	n/a	n/a

WASTE MANAGEMENT*

KPI	UOM	2021	2020	2019
Total HCRW generated	Kg	5 496 781	4 371 882	4 453 875
HCRW - incinerated	Kg	120 372	n/a	n/a
HCRW - treated	Kg	5 376 409	n/a	n/a
Total HCRW generated per PPD	Kg/PPD	2.87	2.01	1.93
HCRW - anatomical waste	Kg	74 016	n/a	n/a

* This data refers to South Africa only.