Pharma companies are going to great lengths to shake off their historical image as environmentally irresponsible corporations. Since a study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2019 found that the global pharma industry produced more greenhouse gas emissions than the automotive industry, the sector has been introducing increasingly ambitious sustainability goals, to reduce its carbon footprint and find renewable energy sources.
Here we take a look at 10 pharma leaders who are putting their words into actions to deliver on their targets.
Katrine DiBona
Corporate Vice President for Global Public Affairs and Sustainability, Novo Nordisk A/S
Novo Nordisk has adopted several ESG strategies including its Circular for Zero commitment to be net zero by 2045 – in other words, to reach a stage where the company’s carbon emissions are no greater than the emissions it is offsetting. The company has reduced its carbon footprint by 50 percent since this was implemented, and DiBona has been key in securing partnerships with firms that are making this possible across the supply chain.
Michel Vounatsos
Chief Executive Officer at Biogen
With Vounatsos at the helm, Biogen is implementing its Healthy Climate, Healthy Lives strategy to eliminate fossil fuel emissions across all the company’s operations by 2040. Biogen has received several accolades for its efforts including appearing on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index nine years in a row.
Kathryn McKenzie
Divisional Vice President, Global Citizenship and Sustainability and Vice President, Abbott Fund at Abbott
Kathryn McKenzie leads the sustainability team at Abbott, frequently ranked as one of the greenest companies in pharma. Its recent achievements include cutting carbon emissions in half and reducing water usage by 33 percent. In the US, 36 of its sites recycle, reuse or compost waste rather than send it to landfills.
Pascal Soriot
Chief Executive Officer at AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive is a lead on the Health Systems Taskforce of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a global scheme established by the Prince of Wales to accelerate the delivery of net zero, sustainable healthcare. The group is doing this by identifying opportunities to use digital technology where possible and ensuring areas of the supply chain such as infrastructure, freight and logistics cause minimal impact to the environment.
In June 2022 Soriot received a British knighthood for services to UK life sciences and leadership, particularly in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ester Baiget
President and Chief Executive Officer at Novozymes
Biotech company Novozymes uses enzymes and micro-organisms to create sustainable solutions for customers across 30 different industries, including pharma. In 2019 Novozymes committed to becoming net zero by 2050. “Our sustainable solutions enable the production of more from less, putting less strain on our planet and our shared resources” Baiget said in 2020.
Sabine Miltner and Christian Klein
Co-chairs of Sustainability Council at Bayer
Sabine Miltner and Christian Klein are independent co-chairs of the Sustainability Council at Bayer, founded in 2021 to advise the pharma giant’s board and leadership team on sustainability issues. Together they are driving change across the organization. “Sustainability is not about a specific product or project. It has to be a concept that permeates the entire company” Klein says. “If Bayer takes sustainability seriously, the company will change.”
Emma Walmsley
CEO at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
Emma Walmsley is leading GSK’s ambitious new environmental sustainability goals with the aim of reaching net zero by 2030. These targets include using 100 percent renewable electricity and good water stewardship at all its sites, 100 percent sustainably sourced materials and 100 percent electric vehicles across its operations.
As of 2019, GSK had reduced carbon emissions by 34 percent, waste sent to landfill by 78 percent and total water use by 31 percent.
Serge Weinberg
Chairman of the Board of Directors at Sanofi and President of Foundation S
Earlier this year Sanofi launched Foundation S – The Sanofi Collective, a philanthropic endowment fund that is focused on supporting vulnerable populations most impacted by climate change and pollution. Its first project is to train healthcare workers and fund satellite clinics in a climate-vulnerable region of Bangladesh. Sanofi has also begun work on a vast vaccine manufacturing site in Singapore that will be “nearly” carbon neutral, using energy generated by its own solar panels.
Montse Montaner
Chief Sustainability Officer at Novartis
Montaner leads the environmental sustainability agenda across the whole of Novartis, including the mammoth task of decarbonizing the entire supply chain. To do this Novartis has joined forces with nine other pharma companies to launch Energize, a program designed by Schneider Electric to increase access to renewable energy sources. The company is also committed to becoming carbon neutral across its value chain by 2040. To date it has managed to save 1,400 tonnes of CO2 by reducing shipments by 18,000 a year.
Ingo Weiss
Head of Global Environment and Sustainability Management at Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim aims to become carbon neutral by 2030, by focusing on reducing its water footprint and waste sent to landfill. The company recently came up the idea of setting an internal carbon price of EUR €100 per ton of C02 – more than double the price the EU Emissions Trading System has set for carbon – to encourage the adoption of low carbon alternatives across the business.
“In Gainesville, Georgia/USA, and Sant Cugat, Spain, for instance, new canopy parking lots have been equipped with solar panels” Weiss says. This has created higher costs at the beginning. But it pays off in the long term because electricity is generated from a renewable source and can be used directly on site.”
Quick links
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- How data and digital technologies can drive sustainability in pharma
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