Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has unveiled an ambitious climate-friendly plan that is great for the planet and could ease the mind of people suffering from respiratory issues. A portion of AstraZeneca’s suite of drugs is for the treatment of respiratory issues, yet the company wishes to help in the reduction of air pollutants. It’s good to know that a company selling respiratory drugs isn’t taking advantage of a situation that could give them more patients and increase sales if air pollution continues to worsen.
We commonly see the opposite occurring; companies profiting from disaster and entering a situation to “save the day”. However, AstraZeneca plans to achieve zero carbon emissions from its global operations by 2025! It presented its Ambition Zero Carbon program at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said:
Climate change is an urgent threat to public health, the environment and the sustainability of the global economy. Since 2015, we have reduced our carbon emissions from operations by almost a third and our water consumption by almost one fifth.
But now is the time to act even faster and redouble our efforts. The commitments AstraZeneca has made today as part of our ‘Ambition Zero Carbon’ strategy will enable us to speed up the reduction of our Company’s impact on climate and inspire collaboration at a global level to affect policy change.
The multinational Swedish-British drug-maker explained that the program would require an investment up to $1 billion, which it will gladly do knowing it’s the right thing for future generations. The investment will go towards developing next-generation respiratory inhalers that have little to no negative impact on global warming. The new pressurized, metered-dose inhalers, for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, will use propellants that have Global Warming Potential mark 90% to 99% lower than the older ones.
Alexander Farsan, Global Lead of Science Based Targets and WWF Project Steering Committee representative, said:
We congratulate AstraZeneca for responding to the climate emergency and raising the ambition of their science-based targets, which were already in line with the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal – to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. As the impact of climate change is felt by more and more communities across the globe, AstraZeneca’s collaborative approach to scale the impact of a science-based approach across their value chain is exactly what is needed.
It is not unusual for a company in the pharma industry to take action in cutting its carbon footprint, but it also isn’t common. There are less than a dozen drug companies winning kudos for their sustainability efforts.
Soriot said in a live interview with Bloomberg:
I believe we’re facing a climate crisis, and every company has to do something. I have children and a grandson, and they’re going to look at me and say, ‘what did you do?’ And our employees also are asking us, expecting us to do something.
How else does AstraZeneca plan to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2025? It will turn all of its energy consumption to renewable sources for both heat and power. It will also convert its entire transportation sector to electric cars. Furthermore, the company has vowed to request that all its suppliers cut carbon emissions by 2030 so it can become carbon negative throughout its entire value chain.
This new Ambition Zero Carbon strategy accelerates AstraZeneca’s decarbonization goals by over a decade!
The plan even includes the AZ Forest project through which AstraZeneca will partner with governments and reforestation organizations to plant 50 million trees over the coming five years. With the help of One Tree Planted, the first trees will be put in the ground in February 2020 in Australia.
