50%. This is what the two largest items in the healthcare sector’s carbon emissions represent: purchases of medicines and medical devices1. Doctors may therefore be careful to turn off their computers when they leave the hospital, and they may make every effort to improve waste management in their offices, but nothing will be worth the contribution to the fight against global warming that they can make by using their prescriptions. The fact remains that this is easier said than done, because it requires nothing less than the pharmaceutical industry as a whole to move forward.
But before we act, we need to understand why health products are so high in emissions. It depends on the productsanswers Laurie Marrauld, lecturer at the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP) and health project manager at the Shift Project, the famous think tank that wants to decarbonize the French economy. In some cases, such as antivirals, it is the production of the active ingredient that will account for 80% of emissions. For others, such as certain anesthetic gases, it is the use. “And the list of culprits is long: we can think of packaging, transport, overconsumption of plastic, etc., which each contribute, at their level, to blackening the carbon footprint of the industry.
In some cases, the problem is easy to identify…and so is the solution. Ventolin […], most prescribed aerosol in Francehas a carbon footprint of approximately 28 kgCO2eq per device. This is equivalent, in emissions terms, to a 245 km journey in a recent mid-size car. “, we can for example read in a study published in 2022 by a team of Marseille researchers led by internist Benjamin de Sainte Marie2. However, there is an alternative, dry powder inhalers, which have “ucarbon footprint less than 2 kg/device “, and which can replace Ventolin and its equivalents in many clinical situations.
Diving into the black box
Unfortunately, there are not many situations where we know exactly the carbon footprint of a given pharmaceutical product, and even fewer where we have a known alternative. The problem is that we have production processes that are designed for final efficiency, and manufacturers do not design them so that they are looked at in detail, explains Laurie Marrauld. What happens in the black box, as long as the regulations are respected, is none of their business. So we’re going to have a hard time getting data, but we don’t have many other solutions. “Because if we know that half of the carbon footprint of health is made up of medicines and medical devices, this is only an approximation which must be refined in order to take action.
So, have the manufacturers decided to act? It seems so, at least in their speeches. In July 2023, the Leem (Les entreprises du médicament, the federation that brings together laboratories) announced that it was committing to ” on a trajectory of decarbonization and exit from single-use plastic packaging ” The National Union of the Medical Technology Industry (Snitem, equivalent to Leem for medical devices), has announced that it is working on the creation of a ” eco-score ». « The objective: to enable more responsible purchasing of medical devices using a tool that will guide hospital buyers and indicate to medical device companies what is expected of them. “, we could read in Snitem Info, the union’s organ, at the end of 2023.
It remains to be seen whether the industry’s fine words will translate into action… and whether the efforts will be fast enough. Because knowing the carbon footprint of a product is only a first step before reducing its size, or finding an alternative, which in both cases takes time. But Laurie Marrauld wants to see the bright side of things. We have public institutions, health professionals, researchers who are mobilizing to tell manufacturers that we need visibility. “, she says happily. However, the labs will have to speed up if they want to go faster than the climate clock.
Notes
1 The Shift Project, Decarbonizing health for sustainable careavril 2023
