Pharmaceutical companies, suppliers and sustainability specialists will gather in Milan at CPHI this week for a new industry forum aimed at moving sustainability discussions from corporate commitments toward practical implementation. The inaugural CPHI Sustainability Summit will bring together more than 300 companies from across the pharmaceutical supply chain.

The two-day program is designed around a central question facing the industry: how can sustainability objectives be translated into changes that work commercially and operationally across the pharmaceutical value chain? Rather than focusing solely on long-term ambitions, the Summit will examine challenges companies are encountering today, including decarbonizing manufacturing and supply chains, developing more sustainable packaging, applying green chemistry and incorporating environmental considerations into procurement and other business decisions.

The event is supported by SK Pharmteco, Alperia, AstraZeneca, Sharp, ERM, Pharma LCA Consortium, AllocNow and gesco, with participating organizations bringing expertise spanning manufacturing, technology, packaging, procurement and supply-chain management.

According to CPHI, the breadth of participation reflects a growing recognition that many sustainability challenges cannot be addressed by individual organizations acting independently. Changes in purchasing requirements, manufacturing processes and supply-chain practices often depend on coordination between pharmaceutical manufacturers, suppliers, customers and specialist solution providers.

More than 20 sessions, workshops, working groups and interactive discussions are planned during the Summit. One session, the Sustainability Power Hour, will bring together representatives from organizations including BioPhorum, Alliance to Zero, SHC and PSCI to discuss industry collaborations and initiatives intended to accelerate sustainability progress.

Another session, The Advocate & The Enabler: A Fireside Reality Check on Sustainability, will look at the gap that can emerge between corporate sustainability commitments and the operational realities of implementing them.

Procurement will also receive significant attention. The Hack the Friction: Buyer Solutions Lab and Supplier Sprint: From Challenge to Offer sessions will use collaborative problem-solving to explore barriers that can prevent sustainability requirements from becoming purchasing decisions.

The commercial implications of sustainability will be addressed directly in a workshop titled Green Extra Cost: How Can We Absorb Them Along the Value Chain? Speakers from Alliance to Zero will examine how additional costs associated with more sustainable products and processes could be managed across pharmaceutical supply chains.

Silvia Forroova, Director of Partnerships and Sustainability at CPHI and founder of the CPHI Sustainability Collective, said the industry needs to move beyond discussion and into implementation. “The industry has reached a point where sustainability conversations need to translate into decisions and action,” Forroova says. “The challenges involved are interconnected, from procurement and manufacturing through to packaging and the wider supply chain, and no single organization can solve them alone.”

Forroova adds that the Summit is intended to provide a setting in which participants can discuss implementation barriers openly while sharing approaches that have already been tested within their organizations.

The event comes as sustainability requirements increasingly intersect with pharmaceutical manufacturing, sourcing and commercial decision-making, making coordination across the supply chain an increasingly important part of implementation efforts.

For more information, contact www.cphi.com.