Episode 053 | April 24, 2023 | 41:23
Guest: Amy Booth & Chris Winchester
Published: April 24, 2023
Duration: 41:23
Description
How is pharma tackling its climate change impact? Pharmaceuticals are estimated to contribute up to 55% of healthcare’s carbon footprint. As pressure increases for health systems to move toward net zero, we explore how pharmaceutical companies are playing their part. Recently published research led by Dr Amy Booth (medical doctor, PhD candidate at the University of Oxford), with Dr Chris Winchester (CEO Oxford PharmaGenesis).
Full transcript
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Healthcare needs to become more sustainable. Rough estimate: 4-5% of greenhouse gas emissions globally come from the health sector. A large proportion of that is in the supply chain — and a large proportion of the supply chain is pharmaceuticals.
Welcome to the Sustainable Healthcare Podcast. Today: Amy Booth and Chris Winchester, who produced a report mapping pharma’s climate progress.
Amy: Medical doctor trained in South Africa, worked through COVID. Producing so much PPE waste shifted my perspective. Now at the University of Oxford doing my PhD on how pharma is engaging with greenhouse gas emissions.
Chris: CEO of Oxford PharmaGenesis — a healthcare communications consultancy working with leading pharmaceutical companies globally. We help communicate clinical evidence — journal publications, NICE submissions, conference and virtual meetings, data analytics. 500 employees, mostly UK, with offices in the US, Melbourne, etc. Clients in US (New Jersey, Boston), Switzerland, UK.
We met at Green Templeton College Oxford — Amy was a student there and I was an associate fellow. A perfect academia-meets-practice case.
The report: “Pharmaceutical company targets and strategies to address climate change: a content analysis of public reports from 20 pharmaceutical companies” — International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Why important? NHS estimates ~20% of its emissions come from medicines and chemicals plus 5% from anesthetic gases and inhalers. In China the estimate is 55% of healthcare carbon comes from pharmaceuticals.
Method: top 20 companies by 2020 revenue. Scope 1, 2, 3 covered. We extracted from 86 reports across the 20 companies — annual reports, ESG reports, CSR reports, infographics, position statements. We looked at targets (carbon-neutral, net-zero, % reduction pledges), reported emissions, progress, and the strategies they implemented.
9 companies HQ in US, 8 Europe, 2 Japan, 1 Israel. 18 branded pharma, 2 generics. 19 publicly listed, 1 family-owned, 1 majority owned by a charitable foundation.
Reporting standardization: all 20 used the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Within the protocol, scope 3 has 15 categories and is voluntary. Only 14 of 20 companies reported scope 3. Of those 14, only 11 reported comprehensively across all 15 categories. Some only reported business travel — which, over the COVID period, showed easy reductions but is misleading. Several companies pledged carbon neutrality or net zero in scope 1 and 2 only, with no scope 3 commitment.
Regulation: NHS supplier roadmap will mandate scope 1, 2, 3 carbon footprint reporting and a carbon reduction plan for suppliers.
Chris on technology helping: a lot of pharma’s footprint is in R&D. Clinical trials traditionally have patients travelling to centres — telemedicine and decentralised trials reduce that, increase patient inclusion (Alaska, remote Africa), and result in less missing data and fewer dropouts (so higher-quality results). Real-world evidence from existing clinical data sets can replace some trials altogether — and include patients who lack trust or resources to volunteer.
Communication: virtual conferences instead of fly-in conferences reduce footprint AND increase diversity and inclusion (people in middle-income countries, early-career researchers).
Frederik: The current system is insanely wasteful — patient dropouts are a key cause of clinical-trial failure. Solving this saves both money and CO2.
Chris on what Oxford PharmaGenesis is doing: appointed an external consultant to measure our carbon footprint (you can’t manage what you can’t measure). Signed up to the Science-Based Targets initiative — first in our sector to commit. Joined the Sustainable Medicines Consortium. Talking to other people in the sector, sharing learnings.
Amy: Our paper has a table of strategies companies are implementing. Low-hanging fruit (renewable energy, energy efficiency) plus innovative solutions (e-leaflets in packaging, take-back programs for pharmaceutical agents). Reach out across stakeholder groups — government, academia, industry.
Frederik: Don’t marry one framework yet — see synergies between carbon accounting, ESG, SBTi, net-zero, carbon-neutral. CO2 equivalents is very likely the environmental currency. Integrate with overall business strategy — if it’s in a side department it will not command exec attention. CEOs saying “sustainability is top three” — ask them about budget and time allocation.
Thank you Chris and Amy.