Five steps to build business resilience in Pharma & Healthcare

The pharmaceutical and healthcare sector is at a critical juncture where sustainability is no longer a peripheral concern but a core business imperative. Pressures from regulators, investors, and a volatile global supply chain demand immediate and informed action. Drawing on insights from industry leaders, Risilience outlines five critical, climate-ready steps for pharmaceutical businesses to navigate this new reality.

1. Mind the gap

For too long, the siloing of sustainability functions, detached from Finance and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), has limited its impact and hindered its integration into core business strategy. Pharma and healthcare firms that are bridging the gap between sustainability ambitions and financial viability will lead the field, finding commercial advantage from efficiencies and the mitigation of risk. Carbon pricing is now a live question for procurement teams, not a future scenario, and companies that lack the tools and analysis to model and quantify exposure are flying blind.

Climate risk is a procurement and operational cost issue, not merely an ESG reporting obligation. Finance teams are far more receptive when the sustainability conversation is framed around internal risk management and tangible cost savings.

2. Operationalise insights

The value of climate risk assessments is lost when they are not operationalised. For instance, a physical risk report is ineffective if it is not embedded within formal ERM frameworks, just as a transition risk analysis is wasted when it remains a standalone spreadsheet. This disconnect prevents the business from fully leveraging these critical insights.

To make climate insights actionable, they must be integrated into the existing, ongoing risk processes of Finance and ERM. This requires moving beyond point-in-time analysis and equipping teams with tools to manage climate risk as a continuous input for capital planning and operational decisions.

3. Map and manage supply chain risks

The pharmaceutical supply chain is uniquely vulnerable to climate-related disruption. Extreme weather events in key Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) producing regions, such as floods in India or typhoons in China, can halt the global supply of essential medicines and lead to critical drug shortages. Similarly, disruptions to cold-chain logistics from extreme heat can result in the spoilage of high-value biologic drugs and vaccines, creating significant financial and reputational risk.

Further, medical technologies depend on materials including steel, aluminium, and electronics, which are already vulnerable to economic volatility and cost inflation, and will face compounding risks as emissions-intensive supply chains are exposed to growing climate-related regulatory risks such as carbon pricing.

Strategic responses to these risks, such as nearshoring, regionalising manufacturing, and diversifying suppliers, are essential for building climate resilience in the supply chain.

4. Downstream pressure is building

While many healthcare and pharma companies are working to reduce their own emissions, a significant downstream pressure is building. Customers, including hospital systems, health networks, and group purchasing organisations (GPOs), are setting Scope 3 targets that directly impact their medical suppliers. For example, products with a high carbon footprint, such as metered-dose inhalers, are coming under increased scrutiny.

The UK healthcare system is already applying supplier carbon standards to procurement decisions and biodiversity and SBTi target-setting mandates are increasingly featured in vendor procurement requests. Since Scope 3 often accounts for 70-90% of a company’s total carbon footprint, a failure to map and manage supply chain emissions is becoming a significant commercial and assurance risk.

5. Nature is working its way up the risk agenda

Pharmaceutical and healthcare firms feature complex global supply chains that make them particularly vulnerable to physical risks from nature. They face a double bind; manufacturing processes require healthy ecosystems and water resources, while loss of biodiversity threatens the supply of drugs derived from natural compounds found in plants, animals, microorganisms and water. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has put biodiversity and water dependency on the agenda for institutional investors.

Astute pharma and healthcare firms are connecting water exposure to financial and ERM frameworks. Beyond risk, there are also significant opportunities for leadership in “green chemistry” and R&D, and for developing innovative treatments for climate-exacerbated conditions like respiratory and infectious diseases.

Ultimately, the recognition of nature as a material risk is a strategic imperative for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. It reflects a growing understanding that business success is inextricably linked to the health of the natural world.

• Register for the Risilience webinar: Why nature, why now? Industry experts Katharine Teague, Group ESG Director, ABF Sugar, and Krista Gnau, Market Engagement Lead (Americas) at the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclsoures (TNFD) will join Risilience Principal Product Manager for Climate and Nature Risk Solutions, Mary Goldman, for the live panel discussion exploring the critical intersection of nature and business – and how to transform nature-related risks and opportunities into strategic advantage. Friday 17^th April 2026 at 3pm BST (11am EDT).

• Find out how Risilience supports businesses to turn climate and nature risk and opportunity into financially quantified actionable strategies and measurable plans. Let’s connect