Sustainable Procurement & CSR News - Pharmaceutical Industry

The world was already waking up to the economic as well as environmental need for the shift from a linear to a circular approach for a sustainable future. Most investors, governments and healthcare providers have aligned on the need to set greenhouse gas reduction targets and are scrutinizing their indirect carbon emissions related to the goods and services they procure and the companies they invest in.

Such shifting market demands are seeing healthcare systems take a holistic view of the entire care pathway: the environmental impact of the medicine itself, use of power and resources by the organization and its supply chain, and the impacts of patients with poorly managed chronic disease.

AstraZeneca has launched an ambitious $1billion programme to reduce its climate impact to zero - and it will plant an AZ Forest with 50 million trees.

The company, which is building its global headquarters and R&D centre in Cambridge, aims for zero emissions from its own operations by 2025 and says it will ensure its entire value chain is carbon negative by 2030.

A recent study from McMaster University made headlines due to its findings that the pharma industry is a significant contributor to global warming and even eclipses the automotive industry in terms of carbon emissions.
With a deadline of 2022, Merck is targeting four aspects of packaging to reduce the amount of packaging it uses; achieve zero deforestation; improve plastic sustainability and maximise recycling.
Considering the company ships 30,000 packages each day, not to mention the complexity of the pharma supply chain, it’s an almost unfathomable task, but one that is necessary in an era in which environmental concerns are becoming more widespread. 

Pharmaceutical manufacturer Romaco Siebler and foil specialist Huhtamaki are about to launch a range of recyclable unit dose packaging for solid pharmaceutical products, made from recyclable polyolefin laminate. With over 90% of the components used to make the packaging made of either polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP), more than 70% of the final product can be recycled.

For a pharma company selling respiratory drugs, climate change would probably mean more patients and increased sales. But AstraZeneca has committed to contributing its fair share to stop that trend.
Just as the topic of climate change takes center stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, AstraZeneca unveiled its Ambition Zero Carbon program, which aims to achieve zero carbon emissions from its global operations by 2025.