Aligning With the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Dentsply Sirona works with numerous charitable organizations to provide oral healthcare through donations of expertise and resources, including a charitable partnership with Smile Train in 2021 and long-standing volunteer missions such as Let Love International and Nine Miles of Smiles. We prioritize employee health, safety, and well-being by implementing employee health and safety (EHS) programs, processes, and training in all our global sites and ensuring alignment to best practice EHS frameworks and certifications. We also run a comprehensive program of employee physical and mental well-being initiatives in all sites around the world.

The Dentsply Sirona Academy supports dental professionals to deepen knowledge, develop technical and clinical skills, and improve their practices. We work with universities, organizations, and experts around the world to develop curricula to help deliver world-class education and training programs. We are committed to clinical education, with 60 training facilities, dental academies, and showrooms running 7,289 courses with 1,029,000 attendees in 2020. Internally, we’re committed to quality training and education for all our employees, and to support this, we’ve relaunched our improved online training platform.

Our Diversity and Inclusion Council, established in 2020, works to benchmark, challenge, and prioritize action, and ensure that our policies and business structures are inclusive both at senior management level and across the entire business. We are proud to be a member of the cross-sector Paradigm for Parity initiative, a coalition committed to addressing the corporate leadership gender pay gap by 2030. The Management Committee Talent Development Review reviews succession plans and the high-potential pipeline, with attention to identifying and accelerating diverse talent. By the end of 2020, we had over 600 employees in Employee Resource Groups focused on cultivating positive, inclusive working relationships and opening opportunities for development.

Our annual Talent Development Review process strengthens our talent pipeline, aids succession planning, and increases the visibility of diverse talent. Our online learning library, global mentoring program, Early Career program, Inclusive Mentoring program, and Leadership Mentoring program are all set to launch in 2021.

We have invested $600m over six years in R&D, and currently employ >650 R&D professionals including scientists, engineers, and software developers focused on the best quality, design, ergonomics, digitization, and improved workflows for dental professionals.

In 2020, we launched a Diversity and Inclusion survey in the U.S. to better understand the implications of the pandemic on diversity within our business and beyond.

We continue to develop, implement, and improve global Environmental Health & Safety programs. We are currently developing Corporate Environmental Health & Safety standards aligned with recognized consensus frameworks. We're incorporating climate risk evaluation into risk management business practices and will continue to participate in the annual Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) climate survey, setting out a dedicated climate strategy, both short term (by 2025) and long term (by 2050). Our materiality assessment, planned for Q1 2022, will identify material issues, risks, and opportunities, and will be followed by action to improve our sustainability performance and footprint.

We have set out a range of ambitious environmental targets and key strategic priorities, including achieving our net zero goal by 2050 and reducing our total waste production by ≥ 15% by 2025, and are aiming to achieve a reduction of water withdrawal for our manufacturing/warehouse operations ≥ 15% by 2025. We also established a baseline for GHG emissions for 2019 and have set a target to reduce our combined Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by ≥ 15% by 2025. 

We understand that our duty of care extends beyond our people and patients. We must also focus on preserving the planet by ensuring an environmentally responsible workplace, managing waste and water pollution, and promoting local biodiversity, such as through the installation of beehives on the roof of our Munich production site, so that we continue being part of the solution, helping to drive sustainability in the communities in which we live and work.

We engage in impactful grassroots partnerships and philanthropic initiatives aimed at advancing better health and well-being globally. In the coming year, we also plan to increase and improve our oral health and community engagement, establishing new partnerships with leading charities and organizations, and will be launching a new, global social responsibility framework to support our efforts, like our Sustainability in Dentistry partnership with FDI, where we’ll work together to further global sustainability initiatives and progress across the dental industry.