FULL REPORT
Impact Strategy
At Afya, the ESG agenda is intrinsically linked to the Company's strategy. Mostly guided by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3 (Health and Wellbeing), we influence thousands of people’s lives throughout Brazil.
We are committed to bringing the teaching and practice of Medicine to rural areas, as well as to increasing access to medical care, social inclusion, economic development and the establishment of physicians and healthcare professional in municipalities located outside the large urban centers.
Furthermore, we are working to promote the integrated health of physicians and medical students, considering the WHO’s concept of integrated healthcare, which involves a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not simply the absence of an illness.
Our sustainability strategy also includes cross-sectional actions which are in alignment with the principles of the Global Compact and impact the UN’s other SDGs.
Our pillars of activity
Transform healthcare in the regions where we operate
Measure the Social Return on Investment
Engage in continual dialog with the neighboring communities
Provide free medical consultations with the intention of improving the primary healthcare indicators
Mitigate impacts on health as a result of climate change
Encourage scientific production and research into the impacts of climate change on health
Promote better integrated healthcare for physicians and medical students
Monitor the mental health index amongst physicians and medical students
Promote integrated healthcare support and improvement initiatives
The impacts we aim to generate
Ongoing
Attraction of physicians to the regions where we operate
Socioeconomic development in the regions where we operate
Technology at the service of medical updating and practice
Regions with more free medical consultations
Medium-term
Towns with more access to quality healthcare and better primary healthcare indicators
Healthier physicians and medical students
Government more engaged in supporting integrated healthcare
More investment, support for projects and partnerships that influence public healthcare policies
Systematic monitoring of public health in the regions we operate
Long-term
More and better physicians providing services in isolated communities
Better distribution of physicians around the country
Longer lifespans for the public
Ensure of a long-term sustainable impacts and strengthen corporate social responsibility
Traditional people and communities in the Amazon region impacted less by climate change
Who we want to affect
Communities
Physicians
Medical
students
Local
healthcare system
Government
Our objective
To transform healthcare together with those who have Medicine as a vocation.
Social impact
Our contribution to society
Afya has spent 25 years promoting actions in the communities neighboring its operations, conducting extension projects and encouraging volunteer work. These initiatives include activities focused on the promotion of health and wellbeing, the prevention of illness, and the advancement of social inclusion. We also contribute to the development of the local economies, since our units use the services and products provided by the suppliers which operate in the states where they are located. Read more
69%
of Afya’s medical schools are located in regions where the physician-patient ratio has historically been lower than the national and international averages
47%
of our spending with suppliers was with local companies
In 2023, we provided
586,611
free healthcare consultations
649
agreements and partnerships were signed with local governments
Our schools perform many different voluntary actions that impact thousands of people*:
8,500+
people benefited from projects related to health and wellbeing
8,400+
people impacted by actions designed to ensure human rights and social responsibility
14,300+
people engaged in environmental preservation initiatives
*The number of people benefited is approximate or estimated.
Our people
At Afya, we appreciate and care for those who are with us. We develop initiatives focused on establishing a working environment that is humane, welcoming, diverse and inclusive, and on nurturing an environment of development, high performance and advancement of one’s own career.
Who we are:
9,680
employees
58%
women
47%
black or mixed race
12%
aged over 50
84%
of our units and affiliates meet the quota for disabled persons
60%
of the schools’ principals are
from the local communities
The figures above, in the highlights and in the “Our people” section, are for 2023.
Mental health, Afya’s social project
In 2023, we launched our social project: the promotion of the mental health of physicians and medical students. Afya, as a strong physicians ally, has been developing a series of initiatives focused on improving the integrated healthcare of these professionals, which has had a real effect on the quality of the consultations provided to patients. The project involves a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, researchers, psychologists and professionals specialized in sustainability and data. Read more
Our employees’ mental health is also very important to us. We form part of the #MenteEmFoco Movement, the aim of which is to bring the issue of mental health into organizations, promoting initiatives focused on our employees. Read more
Climate change
Climate change is currently the planet’s most pressing environmental concern. And, beyond the obvious impacts on towns and populations, the crisis it has generated, concerns one of Afya’s main objectives: the promotion of health. Climate change, therefore, is very important both from the environmental and the social perspective, meaning that mitigating the impacts that contribute to its intensification is amongst our top priorities.
In our operations, we have developed initiatives focused on the management of emissions. the consumption of energy and water, and the responsible generation and correct disposal of waste.
16
Schools with photovoltaic power stations installed, supplying 17 schools with renewable energy
100%
of the electricity consumed by our undergraduate and graduate units in 2023 was drawn from clean and renewable sources*
*Result achieved through the acquisition of 20,200 I-RECs, certificates that track Megawatt-hours (MWh) consumed and guarantee they come from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, following recommendations and criteria from international attribute tracking standards environmental energy
Since 2020, we have performed an inventory of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from our operations
In 2023, we emitted 10,583.16 tCO2e, such being:
Scope 1: 3,192.45 tCO2e
Scope 2: 0 tCO2e
Scope 3: 7,391.16 tCO2e
We have included two new Scope 3 emissions categories in the inventory: goods and services acquired and home-work travel. Together, these categories represented 50.20% of the year’s total emissions.
Our business
We are leaders in Brazil in the three segments in which we operate: Undergraduate, Continuing Medical Education, and Medical Practice Solutions. With a wide portfolio of products and services, Afya aims to be a physicians ally throughout their journey, allowing them to experience the very best in Medicine. We integrate education and solutions to optimize the training, updating, assertiveness, productivity and connection of physicians with the healthcare ecosystem.
Intellectual capital
253 projects approved by the Brazilian Medical Congress
150 courses in the continuing education portfolio
32 million+ visits to the principal digital platform for medical decision-making
Social and relationship capital
6,034 undergraduate students
4,976 continuing medical education students
268,000 active users of medical practice solutions (at the end of 2023)
2 million+ free healthcare consultations since 2019
100 contracts with 40 large pharmaceutical companies
R$ 43.46 million in investments focused on healthcare infrastructure in the municipalities where we operate
Productive capital
63% of our medical schools are located outside metropolitan regions
3,203 medical seats authorized by the MEC
11 healthtechs
Natural capital
16% of the total sum of electricity required by our operations was supplied by solar energy
100% of the electricity consumed by the group’s 45 operations is sourced from clean and renewable origins
We achieved zero Scope 2 emissions in 2023, through the in-house generation of renewable energy and the acquisition of I-RECs
Human capital
36 employees were awarded scholarships for undergraduate, language and graduate/MBA courses
60% of the unit directors are drawn from the local communities
52% dof the teaching staff and 24% of the employees hold Masters and/or Doctorate qualifications
Financial capital
R$ 2,874.1 million in adjusted net revenue
R$ 1,165.7 million in adjusted EBITDA
R$ 591.1 million in adjusted net income
A message from the management
“Our way of having a positive impact on the world involves contributing to increasing the quality of healthcare, and access to it, through a transformation in the way Medicine is taught. This is how we guide our strategies, efforts and achievements.” Virgilio Gibbon - Afya CEO
Read our CEO’s full message hereA Message from the Board of Directors
“We are proud to contribute to an activity that has such an impact on society, and it is inspiring to have the vision that, by being committed to innovation and excellence, we can support the improvement of the country’s healthcare system and provide the public with access to quality medical care.” Kay Krafft and Nicolau Carvalho Esteves Co-Chairmen of the Board of Directors
Read the full message here
