With climate change now an acknowledged emergency, carbon emissions have become an area of intense focus. The EU’s Green Deal outlines the framework for a sustainable transition to net carbon neutrality – “net zero” – by 2050. This includes policies to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030.
Every organisation in the life sciences industry must be able to show how it is working to play its part and reduce its own carbon emissions, both directly and within its supply chain. Most organisations have published net zero targets of their own.
To make these targets a reality, there are some critical requirements:
Identification of relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Adoption of renewable energy sources, low-carbon technologies and reduced waste
Recycling initiatives in the manufacture of products
Accurate monitoring of carbon footprint during the product lifecycle
In practice, we see a number of emerging areas of focus amongst life science businesses:
Replacing reliance on finite and polluting energy sources with renewable forms to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Increased investment in the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to reduce the energy intensiveness and consumption of processes and product development.
Use of technology to carry out more processes remotely. This includes decentralised trials, enabling patients to participate from home – broadening inclusivity and lowering the carbon footprint associated with travel.
An emphasis on recycling and the circular economy. There has been a particular focus on the recycling of medical devices, with several initiatives launched around the collection and recycling of devices from hospital settings.
Reduction in plastics and packaging. Switching to biodegradable materials reduces shipping footprint, lowering carbon emissions across the supply chain, as well as reducing the environmental impact of plastic waste, particularly single-use plastic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the direct relationship between nature and health, and the critical role of ecosystem integrity in mitigating the spread of disease. Nature and biodiversity, however, play a broader role in human health. They hold the genetic material required for product development and therefore, influence the Life Science sector’s R&D and innovation1.
Despite the growing recognition of the importance of nature’s resources, the world is experiencing unprecedented biodiversity decline. The extinction of species is causing the loss of potential new pharmaceutical products and affecting global trade of more than USD 2.5 billion in plants used for medicinal purposes2,3. The dependency of the Life Science sector on biodiversity is not only exemplified by current trade losses but also by the missed opportunities associated with the disappearance of unknown species disappearing.
Biotechnology companies, however, are in a privileged position to unlock environmental and business opportunities by developing solutions that prevent biodiversity loss. Although there are important debates on the impacts of Genetic Modified Organisms (GMOs) on ecosystem integrity, the application of biotechnology sheds light on potential solutions to the most pressing environmental problems. European biotechnology organizations are taking further steps in using technology to create biodiversity solutions for the market. Soil and water remediation, as well as the production of bio-based pigments and plastics are some of the applications of biotechnology for the sustainable management and restoration of biodiversity and nature4,5,6.
1CBD. Pharmaceuticals and Biodiversity: To protect ourselves we must safeguard our planet | Convention on Biological Diversity (cbd.int)
2Biodiversity, drug discovery, and the future of global health: Introducing the biodiversity to biomedicine consortium, a call to action - PMC (nih.gov)
3https://www.cbd.int/health/SOK-biodiversity-en.pdf
4Home | Bioclear Earth
5Home (pili.bio)
6NATURABIOMAT GmbH - Produkte aus nachwachsenden Rohstoffen und plastikfrei.
The Nagoya Protocol provides a framework for the effective implementation of one of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources. It recognises that benefits derived by users of genetic resources should be shared with those who provide them, with the ultimate objective being the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
Access and benefit sharing (ABS) regulations apply in many parts of the world when research and development is conducted on genetic resources and / or associated traditional knowledge. A genetic resource is any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin which contains functional units of heredity and is of actual or potential value. These regulations apply to both commercial and non-commercial activities spanning a variety of market sectors.
