Clinical Trial Environmental Impact

Challenge

Reducing the environmental impact of life sciences is crucial due to increasing pressure from patients, healthcare payers, and governments. Emerging legislation is expected to mandate that pharmaceutical and contract research organizations measure and report on their environmental footprint.

Solution

The Pistoia Alliance has identified an immediate opportunity in assessing the environmental impact of clinical trials. Despite being a visible area, the carbon footprint of these trials is rarely evaluated.
 
The framework and tool have been developed by a collaboration of health system stakeholders, including members of the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition, Pistoia Alliance and the Sustainable Markets Initiative Health Systems Task Force, and publicly-funded clinical trials units within the industry Low Carbon Clinical Trials community (iLLCT). Such collaborative approaches are key to accelerating action on sustainability across the many actors that control, influence or have an interest in driving healthcare sustainability.
 
To know more about the iLCCT community visit the Sustainable Healthcare clinical trials framework.