Impact examples and metrics

Our impact and UN SDG contribution 

Our purpose and the agility of our companies in meeting customer needs drives our Sustainable Growth Model. At the same time, the societal and environmental benefits we enable through our products and services help us contribute towards the broad aims of many UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our companies’ diversity means that the contribution from our products and services is varied. Previously, we identified four SDGs as highly aligned with our purpose and our products and services (SDGs 3, 6, 9 and 11). As we broaden the impact enabled by our products and services, other SDGs such as SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) are becoming more relevant. We aim to give some indicative examples of the benefit enabled by our companies’ products and services, along with relevant SDGs, as part of how we communicate our purpose and our impact.

Example positive impact metrics

Example metrics1

Read more on our impacts and how they align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Our impact Applicable SDGs
Providing diagnostics and monitoring We supply more than 50 million diagnostic products per year, for cancer, eye health, blood pressure, and other vital signs monitoring.
Helping improve health outcomes Our products support more than 15 million surgeries per annum, including those to treat preventable blindness.
Conserving water Our products are used to monitor more than 100,000km of water pipelines.
Making water safer We enable over 250 million water tests and supply more than 5 million water quality tests to partners working in international relief and development annually.
Ensuring urban environments and public spaces are safer Our fire detection products protect buildings with an aggregate area of more than 6,000 square kilometres.
Protecting lives Our gas sensor products protect the safety of more than 300,000 people every day.
Keeping workers safe Our interlock products protect workers’ safety in more than 42,000 manufacturing and other facilities.
Supporting the energy transition We protect more than 10,000 wind turbines by supplying over 23,000 fire suppression systems.
Supporting mothers and babies

We monitor more than 600,000 births per year, helping caregivers identify and manage trends that could be dangerous to mother and baby during childbirth.

Delivering value to society through cataract surgery More than £600 million per annum of estimated economic value attributable to our cataract surgery technology.
Delivering value to society by avoiding food waste More than £4 million per annum of estimated economic value attributable to avoided food waste within the meat processing industry (2022)  

1. These metrics are approximate estimates, based on best available data and a number of management assumptions about usage of our products. The key assumptions are set out in our Key impact assumptions document.

See our impact key assumptions here