Decarbonising Healthcare Supply Chains Without Compromising Care

Healthcare supply chains are about far more than moving products from A to B. They underpin whether patients receive the right treatment on time and in safe condition. As pressures on global health systems intensify, the way these supply chains are designed and operated is becoming inseparable from both patient outcomes and planetary health.

Decarbonisation is not a peripheral ambition in this context. It’s a core capability.

According to the World Health Organization’s most recent guidance, between 60% and 80% of healthcare’s total emissions sit within its supply chains. If we want to build universal health systems that are resilient, equitable and dependable, those figures have to start coming down today.

Where Supply Chain Changes are Making a Real Difference

Some of the most tangible progress I’m seeing - and frankly, the most encouraging - comes from initiatives that focus on the fundamentals: the infrastructure and assets that form the bones of healthcare logistics networks.

At a basic level, lower-carbon healthcare logistics requires lower-carbon logistics assets. Cleaner terminals, facilities and transport solutions are not abstract sustainability projects; they are practical enablers of reliable care. At DP World’s Antwerp Gateway Terminal, for example, around 85% of electricity is locally generated, making it the greenest terminal in the port. Investments like these reduce emissions while also strengthening operational continuity.

Directly linked to cleaner infrastructure are smarter modal choices. Not every healthcare shipment can move in the same way, but where there is flexibility to shift from road to rail or barge, or from air to sea, the emissions reductions can be immediate and significant - without compromising control or compliance. Since its launch in 2023, our Southampton terminal’s Modal Shift Programme has removed over 40,000 tonnes of CO₂e by moving freight by rail instead of truck.

Across our healthcare network, GDP-compliant facilities and specialist infrastructure are supported by wider decarbonisation efforts, including electric terminal equipment, hybrid ferries and methanol-ready feeder vessels. These changes may appear incremental in isolation, but collectively they move the sector toward a fundamentally cleaner operating model.

A third area that deserves attention is energy-efficient, GDP-compliant cold chain infrastructure. In healthcare, waste is carbon. Temperature excursions, rejected products and spoilage all carry an emissions cost, as well as a patient cost. Well engineered temperature-controlled facilities, supported by real-time monitoring, reduce both risk and footprint. Fewer excursions mean fewer remanufactured or reshipped products, and fewer patients affected by delays.

Finally, visibility: you can’t improve what you can’t see. If organisations want operational reality rather than assumptions, they need to see lane, emissions and risk data together. That visibility is what allows leaders to redesign networks in a way that delivers sustained benefits, rather than isolated wins.

Cost, Resilience and the Trade‑Offs Leaders Can’t Ignore

One lesson from repeated periods of disruption is clear: short-term cost thinking can create long-term fragility. What looks cheap today can become expensive very quickly if it increases regulatory risk, supply disruption or service failure.

In healthcare, freight cost cannot be separated from service continuity, product integrity, patient access or performance under stress. Decarbonisation must also be approached alongside mitigation and adaptation. Lowering emissions is essential, but not if it unintentionally weakens resilience to heat, infrastructure stress or transport disruption. These are no longer separate conversations.

Leaders increasingly need data to navigate these trade-offs. The right questions are not just “what does this cost?” but “what is the carbon profile of this lane?", "what is the service profile?", "what is the risk profile?", and "where are the operational pinch points?”. When that information is visible together, better decisions follow.

Technology will help accelerate this shift. Recent analysis suggests that adopting AI across healthcare supply chains could unlock net savings of up to $200 billion over the next five years - but only if it’s applied to real operational decisions, not just dashboards. The real value goes beyond efficiency. It lies in making choices that are more robust, choices that ultimately affect the life of a patient or family.

For billions of people worldwide, the difference between life and death is not the absence of medicine, but the absence of access to medicine. Generics play a critical role here, forming the backbone of many public health systems and acting as a powerful equaliser where resources are stretched.

No Organisation Can Do This Alone

Public–private collaboration is essential if the sector is to make meaningful progress. Healthcare supply chains span public health systems, private manufacturers, humanitarian organisations, regulators and infrastructure operators. No single actor can decarbonise the system alone.

Healthcare is responsible for around 5% of global climate emissions. That gives the sector both a responsibility (and a strong self-interest) to act. One of the greatest practical opportunities lies in stopping the treatment of compliance and carbon reduction as separate tasks. When standards, data expectations and procurement criteria are aligned, lower-carbon choices can become the easiest and most compliant choices.

There is also a critical equity dimension. Humanitarian and public health flows depend on shared infrastructure. When that infrastructure becomes cleaner and more efficient, the benefits extend far beyond individual customers or lanes. Our healthcare solutions are built around connecting specialised capabilities to specialised needs, from innovative therapies to generics and emergency response. But collaboration only works if it translates into reliable access on the ground, particularly in underserved markets.

The Patient Impact Behind Supply Chain Decisions

What continues to motivate me is the knowledge that healthcare logistics directly shapes health outcomes. The pressures facing the sector are stark. By 2030, one in six people globally will be aged 60 or over. Today, 4.5 billion people still lack access to basic healthcare, and around half of all vaccines are wasted due to poor cold chain management.

When we talk about avoided excursions, faster response times or redesigned lanes, I don’t hear operational jargon. I hear fewer missed treatments and fewer people missing out on the care they need. The generics segment is especially close to my heart for this reason - it is often the most direct route to wider, fairer access.

Moving antiretroviral medicines from India into sub-Saharan Africa and distributing them across more than 15 countries is logistics as a vehicle for health equity. So is delivering trauma surgery kits within 24 hours for an emergency response flight. In moments like those, logistics becomes part of the care itself.

Stopping the Bolt‑On Approach to Sustainability

Decarbonising healthcare supply chains must be non-negotiable. The emissions are too large to ignore, and climate risk is now a service risk. Protecting the environment is not a luxury; it is a public health necessity.

Over the next five years, the most important shift I hope to see is sustainability being designed into supply chains from the start. That means procurement, manufacturing, logistics and infrastructure all working from the same playbook. We need to stop adding sustainability at the end and start building it into how lanes, facilities and partnerships are conceived.

The biggest gains rarely come from dramatic, expensive changes made in isolation. They come from many small, deliberate improvements across the chain - redesigning facilities, handoff points and transport choices together. That is how healthcare supply chains become cleaner, stronger and more equitable at the same time.

Find out more about our Healthcare Supply Chain solutions.