“We are in the business of helping people become healthy. But without a healthy planet, it’s a moot point.”
Climate leadership in the pharmaceutical supply chain has come under sharp focus in recent years. From reducing plastic packaging waste to sourcing palm oil sustainably, pharma companies are being pressed to minimize their environmental footprint. The industry’s vast global supply chains – spanning raw material extraction to drug delivery – contribute significantly to plastic pollution and deforestation-linked emissions. In response, major pharmaceutical players have set ambitious sustainability targets since 2022, signaling a transformative shift.
This article explores how pharma companies are curbing plastic usage in packaging and ensuring responsible palm oil sourcing, the strategies and progress achieved in the last three years, and what lies ahead. Investor expectations and new regulations are accelerating these changes, pushing pharma to innovate for a greener, more circular economy. The result is an emerging climate leadership in pharma’s supply chain that is delivering measurable results and reshaping industry norms.
The Plastic Problem: Packaging Innovations and Reductions
Pharmaceutical packaging – from blister packs and pill bottles to syringes and vials – has traditionally relied on single-use plastics for safety and sterility. Unfortunately, much of this plastic ends up as waste, often not easily recyclable due to complex multi-layer materials (https://www.4ocean.com/blogs/pharmaceuticals/eco-friendly-packaging-reducing-plastic-in-pharmaceutical-products) . In 2022, the sustainable pharmaceutical packaging market was valued around $71.6 billion, and it is projected to more than double to $146.3 billion by 2027 (https://stampedwithlovexoxo.com/blogs/love-letters/sustainable-packaging-statistics). This rapid growth reflects a surge in eco-friendly packaging innovations and investments across the industry.
Rethinking Pharma Packaging: Bioplastics, Reusables, and Smarter Design
Leading companies are rethinking packaging design to reduce plastic use without compromising drug safety. Many firms are developing biodegradable or bio-based plastics – such as polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) – as alternatives to petroleum-based polymers (https://www.4ocean.com/blogs/pharmaceuticals/sustainable-pharma-innovations-in-reducing-plastic-waste). These plant-derived materials can maintain the necessary durability and barrier properties but with a smaller carbon footprint and better end-of-life options. Pharmaceutical companies are also exploring refillable and reusable containers, moving away from single-use blister packs when possible. For instance, some are piloting compostable blister packaging and pill bottles made from biodegradable materials. While ensuring drug stability remains a challenge, progress in material science is enabling these innovations in niche products. Additionally, firms are working on reducing packaging weight and material volume – an approach endorsed by the EU’s new Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, which will require all packaging to be recyclable by 2030 (https://ispe.org/pharmaceutical-engineering/march-april-2023/sustainability-design-pharmaceutical-products). Roche, for example, has committed to redesign packaging to use 40% fewer raw materials and reduce weight, as part of its sustainable delivery goals https://xtalks.com/top-10-most-environmentally-sustainable-pharma-companies-in-2023-2024-3778). GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) similarly set a target to cut the environmental impact of its products and packaging by 25% by 2030, including using more recycled content and eliminating unnecessary plastics (https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/responsibility/environment/materials-and-waste).
Closing the Loop: Circular Solutions in Pharma Packaging
Progress is evident in industry-wide initiatives. Circular economy principles are gaining traction, with companies incorporating recycled plastics into manufacturing and designing packaging for recyclability.
The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI), a global industry consortium, promotes sharing best practices in waste reduction and sustainable packaging.
At the logistics end, some pharma firms have introduced take-back programs for used packaging. In Australia, the Pharmacycle program exemplifies this trend: it set up over 870 drop-off points for used blister packs and, since launching in 2022, has recycled 50 million blister packs by the start of 2025, diverting tons of plastic from landfills. The collected material is repurposed into products like composite decking, closing the loop by turning medical waste into useful materials. These efforts not only shrink pharma’s plastic footprint but also raise public awareness, with consumers increasingly participating in recycling programs (https://www.packagingnews.com.au/sustainability/pharmacycle-hits-50-million-blister-packs-recycled).
Regulatory Momentum and the Rise of Eco-Friendly Pharma Packaging
Regulatory pressures reinforce these changes. The European Union’s directive on single-use plastics is pushing to phase out certain disposable plastic items common in pharma packaging. Likewise, many countries (from Japan to Canada) have introduced strict rules to cut plastic use and boost recycling in healthcare. Companies must now balance Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) packaging standards with sustainability, prompting investment in R&D for materials that are both safe and eco-friendly. The trend toward electronic patient information leaflets, adopted by firms like AstraZeneca, also reduces paper and plastic packaging components, yielding both carbon and material savings (https://www.healthcaremea.com/pharma-companies-astrazeneca-pfizer-reiterate-focus-on-sustainability). With these innovations and policies, the pharma sector is slowly shedding its reliance on single-use plastics. The past three years have shown that climate-conscious packaging – once a niche idea – is becoming mainstream, driven by both environmental necessity and business logic.
Palm Oil in Pharma: Toward Sustainable Sourcing
Palm oil and its derivatives are ubiquitous in pharmaceuticals, serving as excipients, lubricants, coating agents, and emulsifiers in countless formulations. This versatile vegetable oil is found in capsules, tablets (as hydrogenated palm oil for coating), creams (as emulsifying agents), and more (https://whatispalmoil.com/blog/palm-oil-a-crucial-part-of-pharmaceutical-manufacturing). However, palm oil cultivation has long been associated with tropical deforestation and significant carbon emissions. As such, ensuring sustainable palm oil sourcing has become a priority for climate leadership in pharma supply chains. In the last few years, pharmaceutical companies have stepped up commitments to eliminate deforestation and unethical practices from their palm oil supply.
Pharma’s Palm Oil Pledge: Johnson & Johnson’s Role in Protecting Forests
Several leading pharma manufacturers now use only certified sustainable palm oil. Johnson & Johnson (J&J), for instance, relies on palm oil derivatives in various medications and personal care products, and it has maintained 100% RSPO certification for all the palm oil, palm kernel oil, and palm-based derivatives it purchases since 2020 (https://document.rspo.org/2021/Johnson_&_Johnson_ACOP2021.pdf). This means every ton of palm-based ingredient in J&J’s products is covered by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards, which aim to protect forests and human rights. J&J was an early mover – as far back as 2014 it pledged zero deforestation in its palm supply and started mapping its complex oleochemical supply chains to achieve full traceability (https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/johnson-johnson-commits-to-zero-deforestation-for-palm-oil). “Although our usage is small on the global scale, we are committed to using our buying position to drive responsible palm oil practices worldwide” J&J stated in its pledge. This stance set an example that has echoed through the industry.
Sustainable by Design: BASF’s Push for Certified Palm Ingredients in Medicine
Suppliers to pharma have also facilitated this shift. Chemical giant BASF, which produces many excipients derived from palm kernel oil, announced that it became the first major supplier to offer 100% RSPO-certified lipid-based excipients for the pharmaceutical industry (https://care360.basf.com/docs/default-source/sustainable-palm-oil/6th-basf_palm-progress-report_2021.pdf?sfvrsn=f298b9c4_1/6th-BASF_Palm-Progress-Report_2021.pdf). By 2021, BASF achieved full traceability for its palm kernel oil supply, covering hundreds of mills. Its certified excipient product lines (e.g. Kolliphor, Kolliwax, etc.) enable drug makers to formulate medicines with sustainable palm-derived ingredients. This kind of upstream commitment is crucial, since the pharma sector often uses palm oil in derivative form (oleochemicals) where tracing origin is challenging. As BASF and others provide segregated or mass-balance certified palm ingredients, it lowers barriers for all pharma companies to source responsibly. Indeed, today many pharma companies are RSPO members or have policies mirroring RSPO criteria (no deforestation of high conservation value forests, no peatland conversion, fair labor, etc.), even if their total palm volumes are relatively small. The emphasis is on ensuring that every capsule shell, tablet coating, or cream base that comes from palm supports sustainable practices.
Deforestation, Disclosure, and the EU: Why Pharma Can’t Ignore Palm Oil
Investor and NGO pressure has played a role. Activist campaigns over the past decade targeted consumer-facing sectors first, but now scrutinize pharma’s palm oil use. Being a “laggard” on deforestation can tarnish a company’s reputation. Conversely, pharma firms that demonstrate ethical sourcing can score better on ESG ratings and avoid the risks of supply disruptions. The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), adopted in 2023, adds regulatory teeth to these expectations. By end of 2024, companies placing products with palm oil (or soy, beef, etc.) on the EU market must prove the commodities are deforestation-free (https://www.acre.com/blog/the-eu-deforestation-regulation-the-talent-challenge-for-european-natural-resource-businesses). This law explicitly impacts healthcare: palm oil is listed as an essential component in medicine capsules, ointments, and excipients, all requiring traceability to sustainable sources. Complex global supply chains make this a challenge for pharma, but failure to comply will mean losing access to the EU market (https://www.fgvw.de/en/news/compliance-update-on-the-eu-deforestation-regulation-eudr-in-the-healthcare-sector). As a result, the next few years will likely see even tighter collaboration with initiatives like RSPO and accelerated efforts to map and clean up palm oil supply lines. The sustainability trend for palm oil in pharma, evident since 2022, has shifted from voluntary leadership by companies like J&J to an industry-wide movement driven equally by conscience and compliance.
Conclusion
These are exciting times as we are witnessing the pharmaceutical supply chain undergoing a green transformation at a global scale. What was once viewed as ancillary – reducing plastic waste, sourcing sustainable palm oil, cutting carbon – is now central to pharma’s mission of improving health in a responsible way. The climate leadership shown in the past few years by pioneering companies will become the norm as pressures and opportunities converge. But continued progress is not automatic; it requires expertise, investment, and often, collaboration with external partners. For organizations in the pharma industry looking to accelerate their sustainability journey – from designing carbon-neutral supply chains to investing in verified carbon credits – working with experienced partners is key. This is where consultancies like CarbonCreditCapital.com come in, contact us today to explore sustainability consulting, carbon credit purchases, and collaboration opportunities. Together with your stakeholders, we can ensure that the pharma supply chain of the future heals the planet as much as it heals patients.
Most businesses that decide to act on their net-zero targets reach the same point of friction. Buying carbon credits has meant tracking down brokers, sitting through sales calls, and requesting a quote just to learn a price, sometimes with limited proof of what you are buying.
The earnings calls that quietly reframed climate from sustainability question to operating risk.
Three earnings calls in the last 18 months tell the story without any help from a press release.
Hershey, May 2024: cocoa price exposure compresses margin, and the company attributes part of the cost shock to West African weather. Olam, July 2024: coffee climate exposure quantified in the annual report. JBS, January 2025: supply chain climate disclosures expanded materially in response to investor pressure and regulatory expectation. None of these companies issued the announcement as climate news. They issued it as financial news. The climate-linked supply chain risk did not arrive with a sustainability framing; it arrived as a P&L line.
You are probably reading this article because you suspect the same thing is happening to your business. This piece walks through what is showing up on which earnings calls, how procurement and finance leaders are quantifying the exposure, and what serious corporates are doing about it before the regulator asks.
Where climate risk has already appeared in earnings
The pattern is consistent across resource-intensive sectors. A weather event compresses supply, the price spikes, the cost flows through the income statement, and the analyst on the call asks whether the event is anomalous or structural. Increasingly, the honest answer is the second one.
Cocoa is the cleanest example. The 2023 to 2024 West African harvest fell sharply on the back of erratic rainfall and disease. Cocoa futures more than tripled. Companies with concentrated West African sourcing absorbed the cost; companies with diversified sourcing absorbed less. The exposure was not climate as ESG topic. It was climate as cost of goods.
Coffee follows the same pattern. Brazilian and Vietnamese harvests have moved on weather more sharply across the last several seasons. Roasters with long-tenor supplier relationships and origin diversification have managed the volatility; roasters with spot-market exposure have not. Wheat, sugar, palm oil, beef: the same dynamic in different commodities, a pattern the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report projects will intensify across agricultural systems through mid-century.
What this means: climate risk is no longer a footnote in the 10-K. It is a line item the CFO has to explain on the call.
The three commodity exposures that hit margin first
For most companies with material Scope 3 exposure, three exposures dominate the near-term P&L risk.
- Concentrated single-origin sourcing in a climate-vulnerable region. If your tier-one supply for any material commodity sits in one geography, you have a concentration risk that climate amplifies. Diversification across origins is the obvious hedge, but it takes years to build and requires relationships you cannot acquire by tender.
- Supplier financial fragility under climate stress. Smallholder farmers, who supply a large share of the global cocoa, coffee, and palm oil market, do not carry the balance sheets to absorb yield shocks. When yields collapse, they exit. When they exit, your supply base shrinks, and the surviving suppliers raise prices. The risk is structural, not cyclical.
- Logistics and storage exposure to extreme weather. Hurricane disruptions to Gulf shipping, drought-driven Panama Canal restrictions, flooding in European inland waterways: each of these has moved input costs in the last three years, a pattern documented in Munich Re’s natural catastrophe data. The exposure shows up as a one-quarter event in the financial press but accumulates over time on the cost line.
TCFD and ISSB disclosure changes
The disclosure architecture has now caught up with the risk. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, whose recommendations are now embedded in the ISSB’s IFRS S2 climate standard, requires companies to disclose climate-related risks across physical and transition categories, with quantification where possible.
For physical risk specifically (the climate-linked supply chain risk you are reading about), the disclosure must address both acute exposures (extreme weather events) and chronic exposures (gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, and growing seasons). The disclosure must address the time horizon over which the risk is material, the parts of the value chain exposed, and the financial impact under different scenarios.
The CSRD imposes similar requirements under European law, with double materiality (both financial and impact materiality) embedded in the assessment. The practical effect: your auditors and your investor relations team now need a defensible answer to the climate-linked supply chain risk question, and the answer needs to be quantified.
What procurement and finance can do now
Three actions matter near-term.
Map your exposure. Most companies do not have a clear view of which tier-one and tier-two suppliers sit in which climate-vulnerable geographies. Without the map, you cannot quantify the risk, and without the quantification, you cannot disclose it credibly. The map is the foundation, and World Resources Institute climate risk research provides useful public tooling to start.
Diversify and deepen, in that order. Diversification across origins reduces concentration risk, but the deeper move is to invest in the resilience of the suppliers you already have. Regenerative practices, agroforestry, soil health interventions: these reduce yield volatility under climate stress and protect your input cost trajectory.
Embed the climate spend inside procurement, not outside it. Treating climate risk as a sustainability cost line subordinates it to the ESG budget. Treating it as a procurement and resilience investment puts it in the budget that matters, which is the cost-of-goods budget that the CFO defends quarterly.
Nature-based supply chain investments are the asset class designed for exactly this purpose. They sit inside the value chain, they reduce climate-linked supply risk, they generate verifiable Scope 3 reductions, and they produce the documentation an auditor and a regulator can both test.
If you are quantifying climate-linked supply chain risk in advance of the next earnings cycle or the next disclosure period, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you map your exposure and structure a Dual-Value Model response that addresses reduction, resilience, and disclosure-readiness in a single program. Schedule a consultation.
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are hearing the same question from their larger customers: What is your carbon footprint? That question now travels down entire supply chains, and it arrives next to tender requirements, certification criteria, and rising customer expectations.
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