Sustainable Procurement & CSR News - Pharmaceutical Industry

Bormioli Pharma has recently joined Glass Futures, a UK-based project that aims to develop a low CO2 emission approach to glass production.

The project, which will last ten years, will soon see the opening of a pilot furnace in the UK dedicated to the experimentation and application of these technologies.

"In a celebration year for glass, we are ready to confirm our role as innovators in the industry, with several concrete research and development initiatives," said Andrea Lodetti, CEO of Bormioli Pharma.

"This commitment is all the more important in a sector such as pharmaceuticals, where glass must not only contain, but also protect the therapeutic efficacy, and where the constant increase in production requires a serious rethinking of our responsibilities towards the environment."

Sustainability is a key pillar for Bormioli Pharma, which has committed to manufacturing 50% of its products using materials with low environmental impact by 2025.

Two years into its work, a voluntary, industry-led effort to reduce pollution from antibiotic manufacturing facilities is drawing mixed reviews from outside analysts. A new report from a pharmaceutical industry group says it is making substantial progress toward curbing leaks of antibiotic compounds into the environment. But critics say the report highlights the need for governments to enact binding rules.

Studies have found that many antibiotic manufacturing facilities release the compounds they are making into the environment, often via wastewater, contributing to the deadly problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). (Overuse and improper disposal of drugs also contribute to AMR.) In 2017, after global leaders committed to tackling AMR, more than 100 drug companies and industry associations formed a group—the AMR Industry Alliance—in part to police manufacturing discharges. Alliance members account for roughly one-third of the world’s antibiotic sales.

TCS is working with clients across retail, financial services, pharma, manufacturing, automobile, consumer goods as well as group companies to offer these IoT-based solutions to track emissions and energy consumption, said Regu Ayyaswamy, global head, IoT and digital engineering, TCS.

“There is a lot of corporate board-level focus on sustainability. So, people are really looking at how they can grow their business sustainably. Three years back, everybody was working with minimum viable products but now customers have gone on scale,” he said.

A leading North American pharmacy retailer has deployed TCS Clever Energy to reduce emissions by 26% across thousands of its stores.