In short, fragmentation slows progress, weakens trust and importantly prevents comparability.
In practice, the absence of a harmonied standard allows 27 different interpretations of sustainability to coexist is incompatible with a functioning ingle arket.
Fortunately, PAS2090:2025 offers what the EU has been missing: a single, science-based methodology that allows regulators, procurers, and industry to finally speak the same language. Developed with stakeholders across the healthcare and life sciences sector, PAS2090:2025 specifies the appropriate methodology for medicines under ISO standards, aligning the playing field for everyone involved. Published by the British Standards Institution in November 2025, it reflects broad technical consensus and strong credibility. PAS 2090:2025 provides the first practical methodology for measuring the environmental performance of pharmaceuticals, establishing a common framework to support comparable environmental reporting, reduce regulatory duplication and provide policymakers with a credible basis to demonstrate progress toward climate neutrality. It also gives industry the predictability needed to invest in sustainable innovation, while ensuring that patients receive consistent assessments of a treatment’s environmental profile, regardless of where it is evaluated.
Importantly, this approach reflects principles already embedded in EU policymaking. The European Health Data Space for example, demonstrates how interoperability and standardied frameworks are essential in making cross-border data meaningful and actionable[3] Meanwhile, the European Commission has been equally clear: harmonied technical standards and coherent sustainability rules are critical to the effective functioning of the Single Market and ensuring the free movement of goods[4]
This is a shared concern across stakeholder groups. Both the Federation of European Academies of Medicine and European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, representing Europe’s leading academies of medicine and science, have similarly highlighted that common standards are essential for transparent procurement and fair competition across therapeutic categories[5]And the innovative pharmaceutical industry, via the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations has outlined both the challenges caused by the absence of harmonied standards and called for policymakers, regulators and healthcare stakeholders to endorse PAS2090:2025 as the one, internationally accepted standard for measuring PCA and LCA in the pharmaceutical industry[6]Europe’s leading academies of medicine and science, the European Commission, and the innovative pharmaceutical sector all point to the same conclusion: without harmonied standards, sustainability policy cannot work.
At Chiesi, we support PAS2090:2025 not because it is convenient, but because it makes our environmental performance directly comparable and therefore accountable.[2]
That is why our teams have laid out ambitious, yet reachable, targets regarding the reduction of Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. We also know that in order to reach these targets, we need to measure our actions and emissions. Measuring what matters is the foundation to making a meaningful difference.[3]
Measuring what matters is the foundation to making a meaningful difference.[3]
Our support for PAS2090:2025 reflects a commitment to transparency, science-based decision-making and long-term sustainability; we use it ourselves because we believe it is the way forward making it simple to compare products fairly, design transparent tenders, and procure with clarity. Further, industry members will be able to innovate with confidence, knowing that the life-changing efforts will be assessed with science and clear understandings. That said, no single actor can deliver alignment alone. Real progress depends on collaboration between regulators, policymakers, scientific bodies, and industry around a shared approach to measuring and comparing environmental impact.