Sustainability

Restrictions on commonly used chemicals, increased reporting requirements and enhanced environmental risk assessments are just some of the new EU sustainability and environmental rules pharmaceutical companies are potentially facing. While some measures are multi-sectoral, others are pharma specific. The Pink Sheet takes a look at some of the developments in 2024 and expectations for 2025 and beyond.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an initiative to highlight the pressing global need to reduce the impact of the pharmaceutical industry on the environment while maintaining high standards of safety and efficacy for products.

Royal Philips is at the forefront of the driving environmental sustainability along the Scope 1-2-3 chain. The company hosted a round table in Amsterdam to hear experiences from providers.

FDA and USDA ask for comments on questions on date labeling for food, supplements in response to Biden administration’s June 2024 final National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics.

The Design for Life roadmap will help medtech companies comply with the UK NHS’s Net Zero 2045 greenhouse gas emissions target. A dedicated medtech innovation center is mooted.

Cosmetics Europe’s John Chave highlights the important role that industry must have in educating the public about chemicals used in cosmetic products. The association’s COSMILE Europe database launched last year is one such measure to combat misinformation while industry braces for potential impacts resulting from new hazard categories under the Classification, Labeling and Packaging (CLP) regulation.

Single-use packaging producers should heed the 1 October deadline in Colorado’s EPR law for paper and packaging to register with Circular Action Alliance lest they face enforcement action, said an advisor for that organization, which is leading the program’s administration, at IBA’s Cosmetics Convergence Fall 2024 Virtual Symposium.

As the planet heats up and sea levels rise, the need to reduce carbon emissions is becoming ever more urgent. The life sciences industry is just one of many that are looking to cut the carbon it produces.  

In this episode of HBW Insight's Over The Counter podcast, we connect with Neil D’Souza, CEO of Makersite GmbH, a data software company based in Stuttgart, Germany that offers “next generation” product data management tools that help personal care and other industries manage product sustainability, cost and compliance.

The revised EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, which obliges pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries to contribute at least 80% towards the costs of removing micropollutants from wastewater through quaternary treatments, will place an additional burden of around €2bn per year on German manufacturers, says Pharma Deutschland.