A look into Eli Lilly’s sustainability efforts and what it suggests about the trend in Big Pharma

Though hospitals have been making efforts to change up their sustainability strategies, acute care isn’t the only space in healthcare interested in maintaining a green footprint.

Pharma has also been deeply involved in the sustainability game, and Eli Lilly’s VP of Sustainability Jim Greffet shared with Healthcare Brew a bit about what the pharmaceutical giant has been doing recently.

“Oftentimes I think there’s this view that sustainability is at odds with good business…That’s not the case,” he said. For example, he said focusing on both yield and scale to “get the most output for the least input—that is both a good sustainable practice and it’s also good for business.”

And experts say change is needed, as research compiled by the US Environmental Protection Agency shows pharmaceuticals have a negative impact on the environment and various ecosystems, and may even be harming human health. Overall, the pharmaceutical industry produces 20%–25% of healthcare’s global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2024 University of Toronto study.

Of course, healthcare executives seeing the benefits of implementing sustainable practices—including long-term and short-term financial benefits—isn’t exactly new. And despite the Trump administration questioning whether climate change is real, Lilly and other healthcare companies appear to be staying the course on previously established plans and goals.

Building off a solid year. Eli Lilly is in “a golden age of innovation,” Greffet said, which is largely attributable to its GLP-1s; the company’s latest earnings show quarterly revenue grew 54% YoY due to Mounjaro and Zepbound sales. It also hit a $1 trillion market cap on Nov. 21, becoming the first healthcare company to reach the milestone.

On top of that, the company pledged in February to more than double its US manufacturing efforts in line with other pharmas trying to sidestep tariffs. As Lilly is creating these new plants, Greffet said, it’s building them and updating existing structures with “sustainability principles” like LEED certification and energy design, on-site solar, and LED lighting.

The company has also vowed by 2030 to be carbon neutral and run fully on renewable electricity, cut its plastic waste, ensure at least 90% of plastic is reused or recycled, and ensure its water usage doesn’t negatively impact the environment. From 2020 through the end of 2024, the company has sourced 58% of its electricity from renewable sources, per company data.

Greffet added Lilly is also partnering with pharmas Novo Nordisk and Sanofi on “take-back pilots” to collect GLP-1 injectables and reprocess them into other materials. In 2024, Lilly repurposed 95.7% of its plastic waste and recycled 86.6%, according to company data.

Supplying sustainability. When it comes down to implementing sustainability initiatives within pharma, Harry Morrison, partner of sustainability and responsibility at consultancy Bain & Company, told us one of the biggest hurdles is staying compliant with the stringent regulations across everything from drug production to operational changes to reformulating products.

“Those things are difficult and challenging and relatively expensive in the sector, and therefore somewhat harder to do than they are in other industries,” he said. “That’s a constraint that the industry needs to live with.”

One way for pharma companies to be more environmentally minded, he added, is to use green suppliers, such as ones that prioritize renewable power.

To that end, Greffet said Eli Lilly shares with its suppliers what the company has learned and how it’s executed certain sustainable initiatives like solar power. A recent internal analysis found that of its “tens of thousands of suppliers,” over 75% have set goals to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions and over half are targeting reduced Scope 3 emissions that align with Lilly’s own goals, he added.

As for other areas where Big Pharma can look to be greener, Morrison advised expanding beyond current climate and decarbonization goals.

“An important point for companies is to think about not just how do they mitigate their climate impact, how do they decarbonize their process, but also how are they thinking about adapting to that reality and thinking about what the implications are for the healthcare system and the end users,” he said.