The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in collaboration with leading pharmaceutical companies and supported by PwC UK, has published the Roadmap to Nature Positive: Foundations for the Pharmaceutical Sector (‘Roadmap’). This publication marks a critical milestone in the pharmaceutical sector’s efforts to understand its nature-related impacts and dependencies and identify key actions to drive nature-positive outcomes.
The Roadmap supports progress towards the global goal of halting and reversing nature loss by 2030, as outlined in the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). A system-wide, transformative approach is needed to progress towards this goal. For this reason, WBCSD, in partnership with GSK, has brought together a working group of leading pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, Bayer, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Reckitt and Roche to develop a roadmap towards nature positive for the pharmaceutical sector.
Action on nature matters for health, climate and long-term business success. That’s why we’ve made a commitment, alongside our net zero goal, to contribute to a nature-positive world. This collaboration is helping to identify and prioritize the key issues for our sector, so that we can drive collective action for nature, people and business resilience.
Claire Lund, VP, Sustainability, GSK
The Roadmap offers pharmaceutical companies a crucial tool to understand, manage, and mitigate their impacts on nature. By adopting a value chain-wide approach, it fosters innovation and resilience, boosting competitiveness and amplifying impact. With CBD COP16 behind us and UNFCCC COP30 ahead, the priority now is turning ambition into measurable action. At WBCSD, we stand ready to support our members and partners in making this a reality.
Diane Holdorf, Executive Vice President, WBCSD
The Roadmap provides a structured approach to assessing their nature-related impacts across the value chain, from raw material sourcing and supply chain management to product end-of-life considerations and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources. The actions outlined in the Roadmap can be tailored to each company’s business model and materiality, ensuring targeted and effective implementation.
WBCSD encourages pharmaceutical companies and stakeholders to:
- Implement the actions outlined in the Roadmap: Use the actionable insights provided to drive progress toward nature-positive goals.
- Tailor the Roadmap to your context: Customize the guidance and insights in the Roadmap to reflect your company’s unique business model and materiality. This approach ensures that the actions your company implements effectively address specific nature-related impacts and opportunities across your value chain.
- Continue to drive collaboration: Actively seek opportunities to collaborate on actions that drive collective impact at scale, fostering deeper engagement in nature-positive initiatives.
Looking ahead, Phase II of the Roadmap will focus on linking the actions to a set of prioritized nature-related metrics, which are essential for measurement, tracking, and disclosure. By simplifying the complexity of nature-related metrics, this will help companies navigate evolving regulatory requirements with clarity and consistency. Prioritized for their relevance and feasibility – and aligned with key voluntary and regulatory frameworks – they will provide the pharmaceutical sector with a robust mechanism for accountability and progress monitoring.
As part of broader efforts to harmonize nature-related metrics across businesses, WBCSD is driving an initiative to streamline key metrics across sectors. The outcomes of this initiative will be accessible via a user-friendly online platform, with an initial version set to launch by the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in November 2025. This platform will enable greater comparability, improve corporate accountability, and accelerate action toward nature-positive outcomes. More details on this initiative can be found in WBCSD’s news article: Harmonizing nature metrics for business.
The pharmaceutical industry has made significant contributions to improving public health over the years by translating scientific breakthroughs into impactful medicines that have improved the lives of people suffering from diseases. This roadmap provides clear guidelines to help the sector continue advancing public health while fostering sustainable business growth. At the same time, it enables the adoption of nature-positive approaches that further support long-term public health and environmental resilience.
Dr. Chitkala Kalidas, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Environment, Social and Governance, Bayer
At Novo Nordisk, we both impact and depend on nature to serve our patients, and we have recently announced a nature positive aspiration. This guidance helps identify the most impactful actions we can take, while also providing a foundation for industry collaboration on the transformative actions we will need to progress collectively
Dorethe Nielsen, Vice President – Corporate Environmental Strategy, Novo Nordisk
At Novartis, we recognize that biodiversity and ecosystem health are fundamental to human wellbeing and the sustainability of our industry. The Roadmap to Nature Positive provides valuable guidance as we advance our contributions to the 2030 nature-positive ambition, helping us implement effective strategies across our operations and supply chain.
Korab Zuka, Head Global Corporate Social Impact and Chief Sustainability Officer, Novartis
It’s critical that we continue to drive collective action across and beyond our sector to halt and reverse nature loss – our health depends on it. We are pleased to support The Roadmap to Nature Positive, which has been developed to protect and restore nature across pharmaceutical value chains, support environmental stewardship and build a healthier future.
Liz Chatwin, Vice President Global Sustainability and SHE, AstraZeneca
Nature loss and climate change present big challenges for the pharmaceutical sector, but as this Roadmap demonstrates, addressing these twin crises proactively can improve health outcomes and drive value creation. We are proud to have supported WBCSD and members of the pharmaceutical working group to develop this blueprint for decisive nature-positive action.
Will Evison, Sustainability Strategy Director, PwC UK
Released alongside the Roadmap, the Pharmaceutical Sector: Priority Actions Towards a Nature-Positive Future (‘Overview’) provides a summary of the key insights captured in the Roadmap. This Overview is part of a wider collaboration with Business for Nature and the World Economic Forum to develop sector-specific guidance across various industries. The Overview and Roadmap were developed through a consultative process led by WBCSD’s working group of leading pharmaceutical companies, with input from key stakeholders including the Pharmaceutical Environment Group, the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, the Science Based Target Network, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
If you would like to contribute to the ongoing development of Phase II in our Roadmap, please reach out to Holly Metcalfe at metcalfe@wbcsd.org.
The Roadmap is the sixth in a series of sector-specific guidance developed by WBCSD in collaboration with its members. Roadmaps for the agri-food, forest products, built environment and energy sectors, as well as the foundational guidance for all businesses, which were initially released during Climate Week NYC in 2023.
