Decarbonizing healthcare supply chains is essential to reducing emissions, minimizing waste, and strengthening the resilience of health systems, particularly in vulnerable regions.
More than 70% of healthcare emissions are generated in the supply chain. This includes the production, procurement, transport, and disposal of health goods and services, such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, medical devices, hospital equipment, food, and other items.
Advancing low-carbon, resilient supply chains will be essential for achieving universal health coverage and equitable healthcare access in vulnerable hotspots in Asia, the Pacific, and globally.
With momentum growing to decarbonize health care, lowering supply chain emissions will reduce the sector’s overall environmental impact. As demography and urbanization shifts evolve and environmental challenges intensify, the burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases will further strain the region’s health systems.
Without supply chain decarbonization efforts in place, the risks of disruptions due to inflated prices, commodity shortages, or external shocks like disasters could wreak havoc on health systems. The consequences would be particularly dire for the poorest and most vulnerable populations, putting millions of lives at risk.
The following four actions are recommended to help countries integrate decarbonization across the supply chain:
Develop eco-designed medical supplies and products. Single-use plastic supplies, such as syringes, IV bags, surgical gloves, and face masks, significantly reduce infection risks in healthcare settings but their production and disposal contribute substantially to carbon emissions and generate large amounts of waste.
Applying an environmentally-conscious approach to product design and incorporating circular economy principles, such as reducing material use, reusing components where feasible, and enhancing recyclability, can help mitigate environmental impacts.
Sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based plastics include plant-based polymers, natural rubber, and other biodegradable or compostable materials, which can lower emissions, reduce waste, and improve resilience across the product lifecycle.
Innovative materials—such as plant starches with plasticizers for flexible or rigid pharmaceutical packaging, plant-based cellulose derivatives like cellulose acetate for lab and pharmaceutical use, and sustainable insulating options like recyclable plastics or cardboard-based alternatives—are transforming the sector by enabling controlled lifespans, improving insulation efficiency, and reducing reliance on energy-intensive refrigeration.
Decarbonize and build sustainability into manufacturing processes. As the healthcare market grows, medical supply and equipment manufacturers will continue to generate more emissions and waste during production.
Building green practices into these processes is imperative for sustainable development and can lower operational costs over the long term. Key strategies include responsibly sourcing local and sustainable raw materials. Reduced waste is also needed in production processes such as reusing materials, repurposing products, and recycling.
Replacing product packaging with biodegradable, reusable, or multi-use materials is also needed.
Decarbonizing healthcare supply chains is not just an environmental imperative—it’s essential to building resilient, equitable health systems, especially in vulnerable regions.
Invest in low-carbon transportation and logistics. Medical supply chains are highly complex, requiring a reliable and efficient flow of medicines, medical supplies, and medical devices from manufacturers to in-country distributors and healthcare providers.
Ensuring the integrity of these essential products while promoting inclusive and sustainable growth necessitates a transition to resilient, low-carbon transportation and logistics systems.
Key strategies for decarbonizing medical supply chains include optimizing transportation routes, adopting electric vehicles, and reducing supply-demand distances through localized sourcing and production.
For instance, shifting away from air freight, approximately 40 times more emissions-intensive than sea, road, or rail transport, offers significant carbon savings. Leading pharmaceutical companies have made substantial progress in this regard—AstraZeneca increased its use of sea freight from 5% in 2012 to 65% in 2022, while Merck reduced its reliance on air transport from 65% in 2018 to just 10% in 2021.
The electrification of short-distance transportation is another crucial step. Battery-powered electric vehicles are well-suited for most journeys under 400 kilometers, reducing emissions associated with fossil fuel-based trucking. Investing in bio-based or synthetic fuels for long-distance travel can help decarbonize air, sea, and heavy-road transport.
Successful initiatives highlight the potential for transformation. Adopting compressed natural gas for transportation fleets in India has significantly reduced emissions. Similarly, drone technology has played a vital role in enhancing healthcare supply chains, particularly in remote areas. In the Pacific Islands, drones carrying up to three kilograms (6.6 pounds) have improved last-mile medical delivery while reducing the carbon footprint, traveling up to 130 kilometers (81 miles) per flight.
Implement sustainable healthcare waste management. Millions of tonnes of waste are generated by healthcare activities each year, due largely to the use of single-use plastics and poor waste management practices.
The pandemic led to a dramatic increase in the volume of healthcare waste globally, while many health facilities across Asia and the Pacific have limited waste management services. The use of chemical disinfectants and incineration to treat waste can result in the release of pollutants into the environment, causing respiratory and other diseases.
Replacing carbon-intensive incineration with alternative waste treatment technologies like steam-based disinfection and adopting the principles of circularity to increase the reuse and recycling of healthcare products and materials can ease the burden of waste on health systems, reduce unnecessary emissions and human health, and save costs.
Ensuring a robust regulatory framework to define, monitor, and enforce health safety standards is also a critical step toward resilient health systems.
Decarbonizing healthcare supply chains is not just an environmental imperative—it’s essential to building resilient, equitable health systems, especially in vulnerable regions.
Nansu Isadahl and Avdesh Gupta contributed to this blog post.