Get real about product carbon footprints
Good-bye spend-based, hello product carbon footprints
Trade the guesswork for product-level facts. Align on one playbook and an IT solutions supplier that is PACT-compliant. And make it easy for every team, buyer, and supplier to act on the same trusted numbers, wherever they sit in the value chain.
The true climate impact of a product can be way off when it’s built on spend-based data. It’s time to get real—and leave the guessing to crystal balls and coin flips.
What we need is data that’s accurate, transparent, and comparable. That’s the only way to put the healthcare ecosystem on a credible path to net zero. Around 80–90% of healthcare emissions sit in Scope 3, so spend-based estimates for purchased goods and services simply aren’t fit for purpose.
Some European healthcare providers echo that opinion and are pioneering system-wide decarbonization strategies that involve setting high expectations for their supply chain. In the UK, the NHS will require its suppliers to provide product-level carbon footprints (PCFs) for individual items from 2028. That shift is bound to ripple across the value chain.
Why biopharma matters
Over a third of Healthcare’s scope 3 emissions is linked to biopharma. A lot of sustainability experts are looking to life sciences for leadership and over a quarter of biotech and pharma companies have 1.5°C-aligned targets.
Many of sector members have already delivered double-digit annual carbon-intensity cuts since 2018. Yet Scope 3 remains under-measured, and without standardized, product-level data, it’s hard to steer real supply-chain transformation.
Collaboration as a business model: BioPhorum.
Enter BioPhorum, an industry-wide organization that brings biopharma leaders together to share knowledge and accelerate solutions. Its 2024 framework for harmonized PCF data sets a common approach for calculating and exchanging product-level environmental information. Done right, these numbers tell a clear story—where impacts sit, what to fix first, and how to track progress.
BioPhorum’s approach shows how industry forums can speed progress by creating a shared method for PCFs that complements existing standards and reflects biopharma’s realities. This isn’t just about measurement—it’s about a common language for sustainability across the entire value chain.
A supply-chain “Babel fish”
Another translator for product data comes from WBCSD. The Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) is built on three simple blocks:
o Data reliability: Harmonized, product-level accounting standards that work across industries.
o Data access: Tech infrastructure for secure, automated exchange across interoperable tools.
o Collaboration: Value-chain alignment to set standards, drive adoption, and build trust.
PACT gives companies a unified framework to measure and share PCFs—standardized methods plus secure exchange. It turns transparency from a compliance chore into actionable decarbonization, improving climate impact, profitability, and innovation. It also lays the groundwork for broader environmental transparency in sectors like healthcare.
The bottom line
Trade the guesswork for product-level facts. Align on one playbook and an IT solutions supplier that is PACT-conformant. And make it easy for every team, buyer, and supplier to act on the same trusted numbers, wherever they sit in the value chain.
#Biophorum #PACT #WBCSD #healthcare #supplychain #PCF #productcarbonfootprints #life-cycle assessments
By Lennart Bjurström. Start a conversation on PCFs at lennart@the-pivot.se
