Building a stronger, more sustainable and fairer world
Social impact lies at the heart of our fight to ensure access to the highest quality hygiene, wellness and nourishment is a right and not a privilege. We develop strong partnerships to empower people and invest in communities, where we can make the most difference, in our pursuit of a cleaner, healthier world.
Our partnerships and investment focus on three main areas: sexual health and rights; maternal and child health; and clean water, hygiene and sanitation.
2020 highlights
34m
Total people directly engaged
An increase of 101% from 2019
771k
People who have experienced a measurable and sustained positive improvement in their lives
457m
Total people informed with hygiene educational campaigns since 2013
An increase of 139% from 2019
£53m
Total investment
Compared with £12.2m in 2019
1.3%
Adjusted operating profit invested compared with 0.79% industry average**
4.3x
Higher than the industry average**
Launching our Social Impact Investment Report 2020
The need for social impact has never been greater
Download (PDF)Case studies
One year into the pandemic, Brazil was one of the world’s worst affected nations. In the tightly-packed favelas of São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, hygiene problems are exacerbated. It can be almost impossible to isolate, and access to water, sanitation and medical services are extremely limited.
To support sustainable programmes, we joined with local partners to reach those most at risk, with high urgency. Together with the Brazilian Red Cross, we delivered clean water, masks and cleaning products to 25,000 families living in the favelas.
Water.org aims to provide access to safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans. Water.org has been a valuable partner of Harpic since 2018. Together, we have impacted the lives of 408,436 people across India, Indonesia and beyond, improving access to clean water and sanitation facilities at home.
We were able provide further support to improve water and sanitation in Kenya through global Reckitt travel savings made in 2020. This donation is set to impact a total of 70,000 people.
In South Africa, there are 4.4 million females living with HIV. Adolescent girls and young women are 3.3 times more likely to contract HIV than men. The Keeping Girls in School programme aims to reduce new HIV infections and teenage pregnancies, by improving access to reproductive health services and education.
The programme, launched by the Durex (RED) + Global Fund partnership in 2018, encourages girls to stay in school, through tutoring and homework support, peer education, reproductive health education, career fairs, and home visits.
In partnership with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), we expanded Embrace Life into Mexico, Thailand and the Philippines, to support expectant and new mothers during COVID-19. We doubled down on our work to support stretched health services. In Mexico, almost 300 districts and around 60 professional midwives were given extra training.
This meant there was more robust family planning, hygiene, nutrition education and care for expectant mothers and newborns. More than 3,600 pregnant women and 100,000 women of childbearing age were helped, and almost 2,000 newborns and 14,400 families of pregnant women benefited.