Innovation

For no poverty and zero hunger, they have a foundation in Africa where they will open up a pharmacy and they are running it for free of charge. Everything Apotek Heart earn (profit) has been sent to the pharmacy. Every year they have a fundraiser, and then the customers can donate their bonus cheques. If the customers send their bonus cheques away, they will double it.

Quality education, they are taking a lot of foreign pharmacist, for example iraq, and they give them internal education. So they can be pharmacists here. They come here and do a couple of tests and then they get the swedish equivalence of their diploma from their country and they can study and work here. They have a lot of internal and courses for them.

"We are now using sugarcane plastic bags instead of polyethylene plastics bags."

Inspiration

Brand image is one of the most important factors for Apotek Heart to succeed in being a great pharmacy. Marketing communication has accompanied brand image all the time in that image exists in customers’ perceptions. Originally, Apotek Heart started to concentrate on building brand identify. Further on, this company has tried to achieve sustainability goals to continue to improve its brand image.

Overall impact

The sustainable development goals of the UN are important for the company and Apotek Heart has done a great job following them. In fact, the company claims to be one of the most eco-friendly and sustainable companies out in the market. Besides that, Apotek Heart follows UN’s Global Compact initiative which means that human rights, working conditions and eco-friendliness are key values for the company. It also means that Apotek Heart is against corruption.

Business benefit

"At Apotek Heart we are invest efforts in recruiting highly skilled employees. Highly skilled employees will cost company more. Therefore, the key of recruiting highly skilled employees is to place them at key positions where they will benefit the company fully". Apotek Heart knew it and strengthened the management to get close to stores and employees to check whether they have been put in suitable position.

Social and environmental benefit

The goal for the business is to be climate neutral by 2020 (Apotek Hjärtat, 2017). The goal requires to optimize resource use, constantly review equipment, plus to keep an eye on various operations and agreements that might need to be adjusted. The primary factors affecting the environment in the company are found to be in logistics and the use of energy in pharmacy stores, headquarters and storage buildings. Emphasis is put on increasing the demand for renewable fuel usage as well as the optimization of flows between the operating buildings. Company is trying to focus on 24 hour rule, which brings out great demands from companies flexibility and flow while managing operations (Apotek Hjärtat, 2017). 24 hour rule essentially means that a drug has to be available to customer within 24 hours of a request. Significant attention is brought to a gradual transition of using more renewable energy and refrigerants to lower climate impact and to maximize energy efficiency (i.e. switch to LED lighting).

Interview

Korosh Arabaki, Pharmacist