The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) and Accenture are pleased to announce the publication of the Decarbonization Playbook for the Pharmaceutical Industry (Playbook), an actionable playbook to guide pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers on the road to net zero.

Climate change poses the greatest health threat of the 21st century and the pharmaceutical industry is a key contributor to global emissions due to complex product lifecycles and an energy-intensive value chain.
Many pharmaceutical companies have set ambitious, science-based decarbonization goals but only 20% of life sciences companies are on track to achieve net zero by 2050. Advancing decarbonization can be slow as companies wrestle with various pain points across the product lifecycle but delays in decarbonizing expose companies to risks across the stakeholder landscape. Decarbonizing the pharmaceutical industry is a core component of the PSCI’s Environment Principle and PSCI members realize the importance of working together and with their suppliers across the whole value chain.

There have been several whitepapers published on the topic of health sector decarbonization. This Playbook builds on that work to provide 24 detailed emissions reduction initiatives across 7 impact areas that map to the drug development lifecycle. The initiatives were assessed in terms of addressability, emission reduction potential, implementation timeline, upfront cost, and regulatory complexity, and intervention adoption timeframe.

We welcome your feedback. If you have any input on the Playbook, please contact us for consideration in future updates.