Creating a sustainable future – a look back on FY21

Today we’ve released our Annual and Sustainability Reports which show what we’ve done in FY21 to deliver on our strategy and contribute to the health and wellbeing of the communities of which we are a part. At the heart of all we do is our purpose of Better Health for Better Lives.

We’ve made great progress in our sustainability commitments over the past 12 months, working to address these directly through our company strategy and transformation into a health company.

Sustainability highlights

Customer health

Our support for customers reached a record level, with our package of measures in response to COVID totalling around $300 million to date. To facilitate affordable healthcare, we offered more choice for patients by extending the short-stay, no-gap model of care to 7 hospitals across the country, and partnered with 45 doctors to develop a new private hospital to expand this model across a range of procedures. We also continued to focus on preventative health, investing $63 million in the Myhealth Medical Group of GP clinics this year.

Employee health

Our gender pay gap was 0.0% this year and we reached our target of 1% of our employees identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. We also launched our virtual learning hub and saw a 25% increase in employees taking part in development courses.

Community health

Given the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, we continued to support the national response, handling more than 370,000 COVID-related telehealth interactions. We invested $1.1 million in health research, improved accessibility to 1800RESPECT by making information available in 37 languages, and launched our Healthy Mind website to connect people to mental health information and support.

Environmental health

We undertook our first climate scenario analysis and enhanced our environmental impact data capture and reporting – both which will help us meet our commitment to Net Zero by 2050. This is a clear statement of our position on climate change and intention to play an active role to address it.

Governance

We know the purpose behind what we do and the values-led culture that drives how we do it are as important as the work we produce. As part of this, we published our first Modern Slavery Statement this year and increased our commitments to human rights through our operations and supply chain.

By focusing on what we can do to support the better health of our customers, our people, our environment and our community, we believe we can build a sustainable future where everyone can live their healthiest life.

You can see a complete overview of our work throughout FY21 in our Annual and Sustainability Reports.