Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany sees itself as part of the community, not only at its individual locations, but also at a global level. Within the scope of our business activities, we play an important role in the vicinity of our sites. We create jobs and invest in the training and welfare of our employees. We source goods and services from many local companies. On top of this, we also support charitable initiatives, often doing so in partnership with our employees.

Our social responsibility activities are primarily focused on areas in which we have specific expertise stemming from our businesses. We therefore engage in health promotion projects and environmental protection, while also fostering cultural activities and education initiatives. We provide disaster relief in emergency situations, especially in those regions in which we operate.

To increase the effectiveness and impact of our projects, we focus our resources on three global projects:

• In our Praziquantel Donation Program, we are partnering with the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat the worm disease schistosomiasis in African school children.
• The Global Pharma Health Fund is a charitable initiative funded by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany to fight counterfeit medicines in developing and emerging countries.
• The Deutsche Philharmonie Merck is the musical ambassador of our company.

Our subsidiaries are also engaged in local projects  and invest in the communities in which we operate, which also serves to secure our future. When it comes to choosing projects, we have defined criteria that are used by our local subsidiaries to decide which initiatives to pursue. The Public Affairs & Corporate Responsibility Group function coordinates and implements global projects and regularly provides progress reports to the Executive Board.

We conduct annual global surveys to ascertain the regional scope of our social engagement, to determine our goals and focus, and to track our progress. In 2014, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany spent a total of € 50.8 million on its social engagement activities, with € 46.2 million in 2013. Of the total monetary and non-monetary donations made by our subsidiaries in 2014, 61% (2013: 63%) went to Emerging Markets (Latin America and Asia, excluding Japan), 37% (2013: 36%) to Europe, and 2% (2013: 1%) to North America and the Rest of World region.

These figures do not include activities that primarily serve to market our products.