Pharmaceutical carbon accounting: API footprints, NHS supplier plans and BRSR Core

Your buyer wants a number per kilo. Your solvent decides it.

Your buyer’s Scope 3 is your product. They want it per kilo.

What do you make?
Work out your APIBook a 20-minute call
PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINTSmall-molecule API, 99.5% · FY 2025-26
Ref.
PCF/API-07/2526
Batch output
500 kg
Solvent
150 kg/kg, 70% recovered
Steam
165 kg/kg, coal boiler
Electricity
40 kWh/kg, grid
PCF
240.4 kg/kg
Of which solvents
96.5 kg
Per batch
120.2 t
Cradle to gate

Example. Illustrative products and sites.

The short answer

How do you calculate the carbon footprint of an API?

Add, per kg of API, the emissions from reagents, virgin solvent, solvent burned as waste, steam and electricity. Solvent recovery usually moves the number most. Build it cradle to gate under ISO 14067, with the PAS 2090:2025 rules for medicines, from your batch records.

Last verified 12 October 2026. Sources at the end.

What lands in the supplier portal.

API makers, CDMOs and CMOs

More RFQs now ask for kg CO2e per kg. Our batch records have the data. Nobody has the method.

Generic exporters to the NHS

The NHS tender wants a published plan. We have an energy bill and a 2050 slogan.

Listed pharma companies

Our assurer wants the coal receipts behind Scope 1. They’re in four plants’ stores ledgers.

Typical requests from buyers, tenders and assurers. Illustrative.

Open the reflux valve.

Solvent moves the number most. Open the valve and watch what recovery does.

Medicines: a quarter of the NHS footprint.
Inhaler propellant alone: about 3%.

NHS England estimates. The usual propellant, HFA-134a, has a warming potential of 1,300 (IPCC AR5). HFA-152a, in the lower-carbon inhaler the UK regulator approved in July 2026, has 138: about 89% less per gram.

Why now

Who’s asking, and by when.

April 2027

NHS plans go public

From April 2027, NHS contracts of £5m a year or more need a published Carbon Reduction Plan covering Scope 1, 2 and all relevant Scope 3, with validated targets. Smaller contracts keep the five-category plan.

2028

Footprint per product

From April 2028 the NHS plans to ask for product carbon footprints. PAS 2090:2025 now gives medicines a common rulebook.

FY 2026-27

BRSR Core checked

The top 1,000 listed companies need BRSR Core, including Scope 1 and 2, energy, water and waste, assessed or assured.

2030

Green power, every plant

GSK asks targeted suppliers for renewable electricity at all plants and lower-carbon heat by 2030. Novo Nordisk asks for 100% renewable power by 2033.

Free API carbon footprint calculator

Your API, per kilo.

Set reagents, solvent use and recovery, steam, boiler fuel and power. See kg CO2e per kg API, per batch and per dose.

0

How this is worked out
  • Solvent priced as methanol: 0.77 kg CO2e a kg to make (natural gas route; coal-based methanol is far higher), 1.375 kg CO2 a kg when burned. Unrecovered solvent is assumed incinerated.
  • Steam: 3.6 GJ of fuel per tonne (75% boiler efficiency). Coal 0.345, furnace oil 0.279, natural gas 0.202 kg CO2 per kg steam. Biomass counted as zero fossil CO2, reported separately.
  • Electricity: 0.675 t CO2 per MWh, India’s weighted average for 2025-26 (CEA v22).
  • Reagents at 3.0 kg CO2e a kg and steam per kg recovered are illustrative. Replace them with supplier data or library factors.
  • Cradle to gate. Packaging, distribution and use are left out.

Answer the buyer’s survey with a number.

An innovator buyer asks its API supplier for a footprint. See which reply keeps the contract.

Supplier_Sustainability_Survey_2026.xlsxSheet: Product footprints
Q 4.2 For each API supplied to us in FY 2025-26, give the cradle-to-gate product carbon footprint in kg CO2e per kg, the standard used, the share of primary data, your solvent recovery rate, the energy source for steam and electricity, and your Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions allocated to our purchases.

Wording modelled on innovator supplier surveys.

  • Keep the contract. Send the footprint before the buyer asks twice.
  • Show the path. Recovery, boiler fuel and power, priced in kg per kg.
Straight answer: we measure and document. Third-party review of the footprint stays with your verifier. Climes isn’t one.
How it works

From batch records to every buyer.

Carbon-OS reads batch records, solvent logs, boiler fuel and power bills. One method for every molecule and every report.

  1. Connect

    Batch records, solvent stores and recovery logs, boiler fuel, steam meters, power bills.

  2. Map

    Blocks, shared utilities, solvent recovery, effluent and incineration.

  3. Allocate

    Site energy to each product by batch hours or meters. Footprint per kg.

  4. Publish

    Buyer PCF declarations, NHS Carbon Reduction Plans, BRSR Core tables.

Method and boundary

Product footprint
ISO 14067 with PAS 2090:2025 rules for medicines. Cradle to gate for APIs, cradle to grave option for packs.
Boundary
GHG Protocol, operational control. All sites, including solvent recovery under your control.
Solvents
Mass balance per batch: in, recovered, sent out. Cement kiln co-processing flagged and allocated.
Steam and heat
Boiler fuel × IPCC India factors. Biogenic CO2 reported separately.
Scope 2
Location-based at CEA v22. Market-based with open access or REC evidence.
NHS and UK
Carbon Reduction Plan per PPN 006 and the NHS supplier roadmap.
Factors
More than a million emission factors, including CEA, IPCC and UK government.
What you get

Three outputs, one set of numbers.

Per molecule

PCF declarations

kg CO2e per kg API, with the primary data share and method your buyer’s reviewer asks for.

Per tender

NHS Carbon Reduction Plan

Scope 1, 2 and the reported Scope 3 set, baseline, targets and actions, ready to publish.

Per year

BRSR Core tables

Principle 6 energy, emissions and water, with the evidence your assurer samples.

Glossary

Pharma carbon words, made plain.

API
Active pharmaceutical ingredient: the molecule that does the medical work.
CDMO
A contract development and manufacturing organisation, making APIs or products for another company.
PCF
Product carbon footprint: kg CO2e per unit of product.
PMI
Process mass intensity: total kg of materials used per kg of API.
Solvent recovery
Distilling used solvent so it can be reused instead of burned.
Carbon Reduction Plan
A UK public procurement document with emissions, targets and a net zero commitment.
PAS 2090
BSI’s 2025 rulebook for life cycle assessments of medicines.
Cradle to gate
Everything from raw materials to the product leaving your gate.
Where are you today?

Where does your site stand? Three questions.

See where we'd start with you.

Who asks you for carbon data most?

How do you handle used solvent?

What fires your boilers?

Questions pharma teams ask.

How do I calculate kg CO2e per kg API?

Add reagents, virgin solvent, solvent burned, steam and electricity per kg, from batch records. ISO 14067 sets the method; PAS 2090:2025 adds rules for medicines.

Why does solvent recovery matter so much?

Unrecovered solvent is bought new and burned. At our default values, each 10 points of recovery cuts about 27 kg CO2e per kg API, even after the extra distillation steam.

What is PAS 2090?

BSI’s rules for life cycle assessments of medicines, published on 1 December 2025 with NHS England support. It is voluntary.

What does the NHS require from suppliers now?

A Carbon Reduction Plan for new procurements since April 2024, and an Evergreen sustainability assessment for medicines tenders. From April 2027, contracts of £5m a year or more need a published plan covering Scope 1, 2 and all relevant Scope 3, with third-party validated targets.

When will the NHS ask for product footprints?

From April 2028. NHS England says the scope and method are still being set with suppliers.

What is PPN 006?

The UK government’s February 2025 note on Carbon Reduction Plans for contracts above £5 million a year. It replaced PPN 06/21 for procurements advertised from 24 February 2025.

Is pharma covered by India’s CCTS?

No. The notified intensity targets cover industrial sectors such as cement, aluminium, paper and refining. Pharma isn’t one.

Does BRSR Core apply to pharma companies?

Yes, to listed companies in the top 1,000. Assessment or assurance of Scope 1, 2, energy, water and waste is required from FY 2026-27.

What do innovator buyers ask API suppliers for?

Usually emissions disclosure, science-based targets, renewable power and product footprints. GSK asks for renewable electricity at all plants by 2030; Novo Nordisk asks for 100% by 2033.

Does EU CSRD apply to Indian pharma exporters?

Rarely, directly. Since the 2026 Omnibus, non-EU groups are in scope only above €450 million of EU turnover with an EU entity above €200 million.

How big is the inhaler propellant effect?

HFA-134a has a warming potential of 1,300; HFA-152a has 138. Inhalers are about 3% of NHS emissions in England.

Does Climes verify footprints?

No. We measure and document. Third-party review stays with your verifier.

Bring one API’s batch records. We’ll work out the kilo.

Twenty minutes. Your molecule, your solvents, your boilers. You leave with kg CO2e per kg API.

Book the 20-minute callor write to carbon-os@climes.io

Sources

  1. NHS England, net zero supplier roadmap: 2023, 2024, 2027, 2028 milestones
  2. NHS England, areas of focus: medicines and inhalers shares
  3. PPN 006, Carbon Reduction Plans (February 2025): £5m threshold
  4. BSI, PAS 2090:2025: published 1 December 2025
  5. GSK, supplier requirements: renewable power and heat by 2030
  6. Novo Nordisk, Suppliers for Zero guide 2025: 100% renewable power by 2033
  7. ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable, PMI ranges: process mass intensity
  8. Methanol Institute, Carbon Footprint of Methanol: 0.77 and 1.375
  9. CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 22: grid 0.675
  10. GHG Protocol, GWP values: HFA-134a, HFA-152a
  11. SEBI circular, 28 March 2025: BRSR Core top 1,000
  12. Pharmaceutical Journal, July 2026: HFA-152a inhaler approval

Facts on this page last verified 12 October 2026. Interactive figures are illustrative unless a source is named.

240.4 kg CO2e per kg APIBook a call