Ecological footprint of the pharmaceutical industry in Germany
Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA)
ongoing
The transition of the economy and society as a whole to a climate-neutral economy and way of living remains one of the key challenges facing us today. A fundamental component for the achievement of climate neutrality is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions produced by industry but also making industrial processes more sustainable.
On behalf of the Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa), Prognos examined the global ecological footprint of the pharmaceutical industry in Germany. For this purpose, Prognos determined the global climate-damaging emissions, water consumption and energy use generated by the pharmaceutical industry and then compared this data with other sectors in Germany as well as relevant pharmaceutical locations abroad.
It is important to highlight the global nature of the study as previous investigations have limited their consideration to emission load and use of resources at regional level. Emissions or resource intensive processes that are shifted abroad are not usually assigned to inland industry. This means that an industrial sector can be responsible for significant amounts of climate-damaging emissions globally, but still appear sustainable from a national perspective and even fulfil national industry targets. For the first time, the global view used in the current study applies a more transparent approach to the sector.
Overall, the pharmaceutical industry in German takes a leading role on the path to ecological sustainability.
The ecological footprint of the German pharmaceutical industry was established for three categories: greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, energy use. We used a method established in the scientific literature to determine emissions and consumption along the entire value chain of the German pharmaceutical industry, both nationally and internationally. In essence, data on global value chains from the OECD database TIVA (Trade in Value Added) is linked to information on industry-specific emissions and consumption intensities.
The study (vfa website in German)
Project team: Jakob Ambros, Leilah Dismond, Dr Andreas Sachs
Last update: 15.01.2024
Project Manager
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