Maintaining patient safety while improving sustainability

The pharmaceutical industry produces more emissions than the auto industry by as much as 13 percent, according to a 2019 carbon footprint analysis. Despite the pharmaceutical industry being 28 percent smaller than the auto industry, it still manages to surpass automakers in carbon emissions. This presents a challenge to meet the goals set forth by the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, and the pharmaceutical industry will have to reduce its emissions intensity by about 59 percent. While a challenge, experts say if the top 15 companies in the industry represent 60 percent of the total market, and big market players make significant changes, they can drastically impact the sustainability of the entire industry.

The first step is to fully understand a company’s carbon footprint to benchmark current states and then generate an understanding of where the largest areas for sustainable improvements can be made. To calculate a pharmaceutical company’s emissions, several factors must be taken into consideration to prepare for proper benchmarking.

Since there are direct and indirect emissions, a company must account for both to truly understand the impact of their total emissions. For example, transporting pharmaceutical products would result in direct emissions for a company. The emissions from a semi-trailer, the tractor, and refrigeration systems would be an example of a direct emissions impact. An indirect impact would be the emissions from the electricity powering a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant.

While each company’s manufacturing and logistics operations are different, there are consistent opportunities to reduce emissions they include methods like:

• Switch from air to sea.
• Clean, alternative power sources for manufacturing plants.
• Using returnable passive solutions.
• Electric transportation.

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1. Switch from air to sea

   For international travel, airplanes produce 25 times the amount of emissions than that of a ship. While speed is the obvious drawback, and therefore likely the main reason air transport is so heavily used, it is at a huge financial and environmental cost. For products more mature in their development, there could be a more sustainable impact to changing logistics methods from air to sea.

2. Clean, alternative power sources for manufacturing plants

   Understanding what power grid your manufacturing or warehouses are pulling power from, and what fuels that grid, is important to understand how to reduce your carbon footprint. If your power grid is coal-powered for example, then it is easier to understand the impact of switching a percentage of your utilities to solar power. There are various clean sources of power, and the switch does not have to happen overnight. Even reducing the power draw of the facilities with more efficient HVAC systems or machinery, could be a simple way to reduce facility emissions.

3. Using returnable passive solutions

   Temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals can be a costly challenge to sustainability, as the primary objective is to keep the patient safe. A way to maintain their safety, but also transition to more sustainable practices, would be to determine if returnable passive refrigeration solutions are more sustainable than single-use passive refrigeration solutions. For example, if the emissions from producing one thermal cooler are higher than the emissions required for the reverse logistics to enable reuse, then returnable packaging would be a more sustainable transport method along with a more financially beneficial path.

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4. Electric transportation

   While the auto industry is still developing electric cars, there is work being done on electric class-8 tractors, trucks, and vans to enable the logistics industry to start exploring the transition from diesel to electric. While long-distance trucking mainly depends on the electric infrastructure, there are several electric van options today. For local or final mile distribution and delivery, your patients could receive their treatments through electric vehicles which would save 23 pounds of carbon dioxide for every gallon of diesel. Not only is the auto industry electrifying their portfolios, but transport refrigeration systems for road transportation are going through a similar transition to electric meaning that as the vehicles become electrified, they will have an electric refrigeration system for extremely temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals. Selecting logistics partners that are investing in electrified technologies and testing them today in their fleets, means that your company will see the sustainability benefits as they move toward electrified technologies within their companies.

   Overall, there are many ways to reduce a company’s carbon footprint and the pharmaceutical industry needs to take major steps to find ways to maintain a high level of rigor to continue protecting patients, while also considering how to protect the environment. Working with vendor partners on exploring solutions to continue their high performance but utilize creative and more sustainable solutions, will be necessary for companies to continue making steps in the right direction.

   Thermo King, a brand of global climate innovator Trane Technologies, has an all-electric portfolio, branded evolve™, that will include electric refrigeration solutions for truck, trailer, rail, air, and marine transport in the North America, Latin America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions. The evolve portfolio aligns with customers’ goals to transition to more sustainable solutions for their fleets and will help advance Trane Technologies’ 2030 sustainability commitments, including its Gigaton Challenge to reduce customer greenhouse gas emissions by 1 billion metric tons. As new products are added to the evolving portfolio, electric solutions will be available in every cold chain segment in EMEA by 2023, and in the Americas by 2025.

To learn more about how Thermo King helps fleets, visit thermoking.com/pharma.