The report, based on a survey of 150 heads of supply chain and similar senior executives across the European pharmaceutical and life sciences industry, provides extensive insight into the challenges faced by the sector.
“Our conference delegates and partners repeatedly tell us that sustainability is amongst the biggest challenges they face,” said Will Robinson, LogiPharma Conference Director.
“If there’s a single message for pharmaceutical businesses to take away from this report, it’s that you’re not alone.”
Although the industry is committed to change — as defined by The UN’s Sustainability goals (UN SDGs) — a whopping 85% of respondents believe their current supply chains are only ‘somewhat sustainable’ when it comes to SDGs.
This suggests there is still a long way to go to achieve the industry’s sustainability goals.
Other key challenges shared by respondents include
- the fact that they struggle to measure environmental impact across the value chain
- limited transparency and data sharing across the end-to-end supply chain
- poor data quality.
The good news is that pharma leaders are setting out a plan of action, focussing on ambitious and measurable goals as they continue building a sustainable end-to-end supply chain.
The report explores some of the means by which organisations are making improvements, such as investment in circularity initiatives to reduce waste and emissions, the fostering of a deeper sustainability culture and incentives within both their own and partner organisations.
“These responses clearly show the level of maturity and development we’re seeing in sustainability for the life sciences supply chain,” confirmed Will Robinson.
“The first step in creating measurable KPIs and metrics is fully mapping out the sustainability credentials of one’s supply chain, including all external partners."
"Only once this has been achieved can measurable KPIs meaningfully be put in place. The vast majority of producers are well on that journey and is a relief to see there are no respondents who have said that there are no goals or metrics in place within their organisations.”