Leaders from the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) and Manufacture 2030 outlined the mounting pressure on contract manufacturers to address sustainability at CDMO Live 2025, with major pharma companies now making emissions reduction a prerequisite for business relationships.

The Climate-Healthcare Connection

Rob Williams, Senior Director of Sustainable Procurement at AstraZeneca and Chair of PSCI, opened with a stark reality check about healthcare's environmental impact. "Healthcare contributes 5% of global emissions. That's actually more than aviation, which is often pointed out as being one of the poster children of the problem we're creating," Williams revealed.

The connection between climate change and healthcare is becoming increasingly clear, with WHO recognising climate impacts as a major health issue. "Whether it's increased temperatures, whether it's intensity of storms, whether it's flooding... all of those organisations recognise that as the climate is changing, it's presenting impacts on human health," Williams explained.

Martin Chilcott, CEO and founder of Manufacture 2030, added critical context: "It's not just the headline acts of malaria and cholera that we're talking about moving with temperature changes, but also it's the migration patterns... 120 million people on the move because of the unlivability of the world in which they exist."

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