Europe now has a shared standard for measuring pharmaceutical emissions and evidence that healthier patients mean lower healthcare carbon – making 2026 procurement reform the moment to act
Across Europe, governments are buying ‘greener’ medicines. Norway scores them one way, Sweden another, France a third. The same medicine, assessed in different countries, receives different environmental ratings. Right now, ‘green healthcare’ means whatever each country decides it means.
That could change. Europe is rewriting its public procurement rules in 2026, a once-in-a-decade opportunity to embed a common standard into binding policy, and for the first time, that standard exists.
The stakes are high. Europe’s healthcare sector is both driving climate change and suffering from it. It generates significant emissions through pharmaceutical manufacturing, hospital energy use, medical logistics, and the propellants in widely used inhalers.
Those emissions feed back into demand for care: air pollution worsens respiratory disease, rising temperatures drive heat-related illness, and shifting ecosystems spread infection.
