Post by ERM

At London Climate Action Week ERM, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, GSK, Secaro and Scope 3 Peer Group, convened a working session on Decarbonizing the Supply Chain. The session brought together companies, suppliers and partners from across pharma, manufacturing, energy and the wider value chain, focused on two of the supply chain's hardest challenges: industrial heat and pharmaceutical solvents. A few key takeaways stood out: - Industrial heat is one of the largest sources of emissions. For Pharma, Consumer, Manufacturing and Tech companies, much of it sits not in their own operations but across their supply chains. - Clean heat is no longer only a climate decision. It is increasingly a resilience and cost decision, and the moment to make the case is now. - Scope 3 is where the real work lies. SBTi v2 raises the bar on Scope 3, which is largely made up of suppliers' own Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Companies cannot meet their targets without bringing suppliers with them. This is the gap the ERM and Secaro’s Clean Heat program is built to close, and demand is strong. Alongside AstraZeneca, two further founding members will be announced in July. - Solvents are essential to pharmaceutical manufacturing, they carry significant emissions and often depend on fragile, complex global supply chains. - Solvent recovery and recycling, as well as drop-in biobased alternatives, are available today. The challenge is scaling these solutions. What holds them back is cost, regulatory compliance and quality assurance, barriers no single company can remove alone. - Technology is moving, but durable and clear demand signals, robust data and common specifications are what will drive system-level change. There is a clear opportunity to develop a targeted supply chain programme for solvents, just as we have for heat. If we want supply chains that are both lower-carbon and more resilient, the next phase must focus on supply chain collaboration to overcome barriers. That is the work we want to take forward with our partners. Alongside AstraZeneca, we will be announcing two further founding members in July for the supplier clean heat program and we are working with industry partners to design a program for solvents. If these topics are on your agenda, we would like to hear from you. Richard Platt | Jon Hughes | Neon Steinecke | Robert Williams | Oliver Hurrey | Emily Prior | Abby McGuckin | Chris Hayes | Jon Stanway #LCAW #CleanHeat #Resilience #Solvents #ERMPartnerships