A red pill for green medicines

In the wake of Cop26, fresh new pledges to achieve net zero have come thick and fast. Energy, automotive and foundation industries (those producing raw materials such as metals, chemicals and cement) are typically under the most scrutiny. However, the pharmaceutical industry also has a role to play. Encouragingly, the majority of big pharma companies now have ambitious net zero targets, strategies and initiatives in place. For example, AstraZeneca’s Ambition Zero Carbon strategy, which aims to be carbon negative across the entire value chain by 2030.

The pharmaceutical industry produces an estimated equivalent of 52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in greenhouse gas emissions every year, accounting for around 2% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Surprisingly, pharma is 13% more polluting than the automotive industry despite being 28% smaller. Products such as inhalers or those that use hot water to dissolve medication have very large carbon footprints (inhalers account for about 30% of GlaxoSmithKline’s emissions). In the UK, the pharmaceutical carbon footprint makes up about 22% of National Health Service (NHS) emissions, equating to 1% of the UK’s overall total.