Pharma companies team up to reduce heat-related emissions

Pharmaceutical companies Sanofi, Opella and UCB have joined AstraZeneca as founders of the Clean Heat Program, which aims to reduce the use of fossil fuel-generated heat in industrial processes by helping companies transition to low-carbon alternatives. 

AstraZeneca started the initiative, managed by consulting firm ERM and supply chain intelligence company Secaro, in December 2025. All four companies have set science-based reduction commitments that cover their entire greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

Processes that use steam are a major component of drug formulation and production. Those processes typically rely on boilers powered by natural gas. The founding companies all prioritize efficiency as a primary way to cut their operational emissions. They have an interest in alternatives to fossil fuel-generated steam, ranging from heat pumps to biomethane to other electrification approaches.

The new initiative encourages their suppliers to do the same, through technical support and, in some cases, financing incentives. More than 1,000 individual sites are already covered under the Clean Heat program, according to executives from ERM and Secaro. 

Their level of knowledge varies widely across these sites, as does the range of technologies that make sense in specific regions, said Emily Prior, chief growth officer at Secaro. For example, natural gas supply constraints in Europe have pushed these discussions higher on investment agendas.

“We’ve got some sites that know exactly what they need to do to decarbonize their heat,” Prior said. “The blocker is financing. We’ve got others who will ask us, ‘What’s carbon, and why is my customer talking to me about it?’ ” 

Efficiency first

The initiative will accelerate Opella’s ongoing efforts to address industrial heat, said Marissa Saretsky, chief sustainability officer at Opella, the maker of brands such as Icy Hot and Allegra. 

“For us, the challenge is not simply finding lower-carbon technologies,” Saretsky said. “It is making them work at scale, across very different sites and locations, processes and suppliers, while maintaining the quality, safety and reliability that are non-negotiable in healthcare.” 

To address thermal emissions, Opella first focused on how to use less of this energy through automation, process optimization and upgraded heating, ventilation and cooling equipment. 

For example, the company installed three smaller-capacity boilers combined with heat pumps at its plant in Narita, Japan, cutting natural gas consumption by 20 percent. In Lisieux, France, and Suzano, Brazil, Opella replaced natural gas-powered boilers with heat pumps to provide hot water for air-treatment systems.

Complicated accounting

Merz Therapeutics, a midsize pharmaceutical company that electrified steam production at its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, said one underappreciated challenge in this transition is how to catalog the impact on emissions.

Merz’s installation in Frankfurt eliminated 1.5 million kilowatt-hours of heating oil consumption and reduced carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by approximately 250 tons. That translated into a 46 percent reduction in stationary emissions for the company’s Scope 1 inventory.

As part of the installation, however, Merz now buys district heat for the site, which resulted in an addition to emissions related to purchased energy, or Scope 2. “It illustrates how data availability and accounting methodology can affect the visibility of operational decarbonization measures within a corporate greenhouse gas inventory,” said Tatiana Kalashnikova, global sustainability lead for Merz.