For Cook, Corporate Social Responsibility is about more than just philanthropy or tracking environmental data. It's about using our core business opportunities, skills, and resources to not just do good business, but do good in the world. In order to develop a Corporate Social Responsibility program that effectively represents the mission of the organization and the needs of our community members, we worked with a large group of stakeholders to determine which environmental, social, and governance aspects are truly significant to Cook Medical.
In collaboration with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), we hosted an internal CSR summit in Bloomington in October of 2019 and invited nearly 40 Cook employees from around the globe to participate. These employees spanned every part of the business, represented all global manufacturing locations, and brought diverse perspectives from the manufacturing floor to the executive suite. In preparation for the summit, we gathered context on Cook’s current CSR performance by conducting executive interviews and soliciting internal stakeholder input via questionnaires.
Once we had compiled baseline data, we hosted a strategy session and workshop over the course of the two-day CSR summit. The group had to determine which topics were both important to the business and could be significantly impacted by our work (we call these 'material aspects'). Our business plan priorities helped guide the discussion of which aspects were most critical to us. To determine whether we could have a significant impact on an issue, we considered the scope of the issue and our ability to impact it on a local, regional, and global level.
We then discussed how ambitious we wanted to be in regard to each potential priority aspect. We came away with 8 priority aspects for Cook Medical’s CSR program.
In order to ensure that our CSR program remains relevant and effective, we will perform internal materiality assessments every few years. We also plan to engage with external stakeholders (including hospital systems, healthcare practitioners, regulators, and community members) in our communities to affirm that our materiality analyses produce results that align with community priorities and needs.
The United Nations General Assembly established the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. The goals are a collection of 17 calls-to-action which were formed with the intention of reducing poverty and inequality around the world.
Companies are called upon to consider which goals they can most effectively address, and to team up with public and private sector partners to maximize their sustainable development impact. When considering Cook Medical’s operations, the goals listed here stand out as intersectional with our mission, priorities, and vision for an equitable future.
In this report, we will frame our CSR priorities in regard to the sustainable development goals and how we are doing our part to support this global effort. Our priorities are
grouped under an associated Sustainable Development
Goal, with the theme of Reduced Inequalities incorporated throughout our CSR activities.
