2023-08-17 03:45:11
” An aberration ! Twenty spindles ordered. I received twenty sachets, each containing a tube, each containing a pin… I tested: the twenty small pins, however, fit into a single tube! » Alongside the publication posted on social networks in July by the group Environmental health and eco-responsibility of our practices of the association Collectif santé en danger, the eloquent photo shows a pile of plastic packaging about to be thrown in the trash. Until now rarely questioned on its carbon footprint, the pharmaceutical industry no longer escapes criticism.
It must be said that the pollution generated by the sector is far from negligible. In France, greenhouse gas emissions from the health system are estimated to be around 49 million tonnes of CO equivalent each year.2or more than 8% of the country’s carbon footprint, according to an assessment by think tank The Shift Project.
Among the main sources of emissions are the purchases of medicines and medical devices, whose production chains, which are particularly complex and often dispersed in multiple locations around the world, are highly energy-intensive. In 2022, the LEEM, the main representative of pharmaceutical manufacturers in France, calculated that the production and consumption of drugs in the territory had represented 26.3 million tonnes of CO equivalent.2 the previous year.
Faced with the need to “green” the industry, pharmaceutical laboratories are beginning their ecological transition. In recent years, they have multiplied initiatives, in particular those aimed at optimizing the water and energy consumption of their factories, two resources abundantly used during the manufacture of drugs and which weigh heavily on the environmental bill.
In mid-July, Sanofi announced for this purpose an annual investment of 300 million to 400 million euros over the next three years, of which 50 million will be devoted to the decarbonization of its industrial sites. The group, which has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions in France by 29% since 2019, has set itself the goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 55% by 2030. In Chartres, Novo Nordisk, whose Managing Director France, Etienne Tichit, was commissioned by the French Federation of Health Industries to lead the “decarbonization” roadmap for the pharmaceutical sector, managed, for his part, to reduce the water consumption of his factory by rethinking the washing cycles.
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