A consortium of eleven global pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Merck KGaA, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, and Takeda have come together via the Pharmaceutical Environment Group (PEG) — with support from the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) — to develop industry wide Product Category Rules (PCR) to enable the sector to do this.
The Pharma Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Consortium and NHS England have been working with the British Standards Institution (BSI) to reach consensus among the sector’s stakeholder groups including healthcare systems, providers and professionals, representative bodies, academics and patients to establish the standard.
To meet this challenge, PEG and BSI partnered with Quantis to develop the first international standard on how to model pharmaceutical product life cycle assessments (LCAs). The PAS 2090:2025 standard lays out Product Category Rules (PCRs) aligning with ISO 14044, providing the sector with a credible and consistent method for calculating environmental performance, and helping companies meet growing stakeholder and regulatory expectations.
The LCA consortium, aiming at supporting the technical use of the standard by LCA members, has developed also a Guidance Document with the support of Quantis. This document will help analysts apply the standard in practice, offering recommendations and examples to bring clarity and consistency to LCA execution.
Challenge
The pharmaceutical industry lacked a unified, science-based method for calculating product-level environmental impacts. Existing LCAs varied widely in scope and quality, limiting their value for benchmarking, regulation and sustainability strategy.
The Pharma LCA Consortium and BSI saw the need for a flexible yet rigorous standard — one that could support diverse use cases, from multifactor indicators to single impacts such as Product Carbon Footprint (PCF). With many stakeholders involved, alignment was key. Quantis was brought in to draft the standard, in partnership with BSI, ensuring scientific accuracy and consensus.
Solutions
Quantis played a central role in creating the first pharmaceutical LCA standard, delivering:
- Technical expertise + PCR development
Quantis helped define robust Product Category Rules tailored to the specificities of the pharmaceutical sector. - Standard authoring
As BSI’s appointed author, Quantis consolidated stakeholder input and scientific best practices into a standard aligned with ISO 14044. - Practical guidance
Quantis supported the LCA Consortium to develop the technical guidance, featuring real-world examples, recommended datasets and interpretation tips — helping stakeholders apply the standard effectively.
The publication of the PAS 2090 standard marks a pivotal moment in supporting the pharmaceutical industry’s environmental sustainability ambitions and transparent communication. It offers a science-based framework for assessing product environmental impacts and enables the design and manufacturing of environmentally optimized drugs. Quantis played a key role by bringing the essential technical expertise and facilitation skills needed to make this complex, multi-stakeholder process a true success
Jose-Francisco Vallejo Carrera, Global Head of Environment & E Sustainability Sanofi and Pharma LCA consortium lead
Results
This collaboration produced an international standard that sets a consistent, credible benchmark for environmental footprinting in pharma. It enables companies to:
- Apply LCAs with clarity
- Align with regulatory and stakeholder expectations
- Build a foundation for ecodesign and transparency communication
With Quantis’ support, the Pharma LCA Consortium and BSI have transformed fragmented practices into a unified framework for impact assessment.
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