Pharma plays a key role in creating a greener future

Frederico Manuel Fialho Da Silva, General Manager Middle East- Gilead Sciences:

We’ve seen from the COVID-19 pandemic how swiftly and effectively the pharmaceutical industry can take on the role of a corporate citizen. Throughout the pandemic, pharma and biotech innovators have been critical players in protecting public health and restoring economic health, by working with other companies, not-for-profit organizations, and governments.  

Now it’s time for our industry to rise to the challenge of yet another persistent global crisis: climate change.  The UN climate summit, COP26 – which took place last October and urged countries to build climate-resilient and sustainable low-carbon health systems – punctuated the need for an engaged and ambitious pharmaceutical industry to tackle climate change.

I believe we as an industry can and must be more ambitious in our actions to protect the environment. In 2019, the sector was found to produce 13%  more carbon emissions than automotive manufacturers. Currently, pharma produces some level of carbon emissions through its entire value chain, from discovery in the lab to delivery of final products.  In addition, some pharmaceutical companies do not adequately treat wastewater, which seeps into surrounding bodies of freshwater, causing pollution.   Strict product regulations and storage needs make it challenging for the industry to reduce its carbon footprint. For example, research and development facilities have very particular specifications on insulation and air conditioning; some vaccinations, such as the COVID-19 vaccine, have cold-storage requirements; and medicines must usually be issued with paper pamphlets due to regulations. All of this contributes to energy use and waste.

Despite these challenges, the pharma sector has the capacity and the responsibility to embrace efforts to support the Paris Climate Agreement and the latest UN Climate Summit targets.

There are three areas that are essential for the sector to address:

Facilities: Buildings are one of the most significant CO2 emitters on our planet, accounting for 40%  of all global emissions. Building R&D facilities according to LEED specifications, which adhere to the highest energy and environmental design standards, will critically reduce the industry’s energy consumption.  Moreover, switching to renewable energy sources, such as solar power, which are increasingly affordable and accessible, can significantly reduce our carbon footprint.

Transportation: As a sector, we should start paying attention to the use of vehicles throughout the supply chain. Switching to electric vehicles and reducing unnecessary travel is a simple way to reduce emissions further.

Manufacturing: The goal of green chemistry is to adopt a more resource-efficient and inherently safer design of molecules, materials, products, and processes to minimize or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. By reducing our use of materials such as solvents, reagents, reactants, and consumables, the production process for the industry will become cleaner and more sustainable. Synthesizing certain ingredients through smart innovations can also help reduce water and energy use.

Several major industry players seem to have proactively set measurable climate change targets that touch upon the above areas, voluntarily complied with the Paris Agreement or aligned themselves with some or all of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, the industry as a whole and its member companies are encouragingly deploying roadmaps and validated strategies to reduce their environmental footprint.

To build on this progress, we must have global industry standards or frameworks along with measurement tools to monitor our progress. The Science Based Targets initiative is a collaboration between the Carbon Disclosure Project, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature that launched the world’s first net-zero standard. Established in 2015, it was designed to help companies set emission reduction targets in line with climate science and Paris Agreement goals. This provides a framework and tools for companies to set science-based net-zero targets and limit global temperature rise above pre-industrial levels to 1.5°C. More than 2,000 companies, including Gilead Sciences, are signatories of the initiative3.

Considerable pharma research is taking place worldwide to find ways to produce day-to-day goods more sustainably. And we must do better to communicate these actions, be transparent about goals and targets, and make use of evidence-based tools to measure progress against these climate goals. The sector is quickly recognizing that patient health and environmental health are integrally linked, both of which will ultimately benefit companies’ fiscal health and bottom-line.