Challenges of the green supply chain management in the pharmaceutical industry

Green supply chain management has gained significant interest in recent years; however, we still have limited understanding of specific characteristics of different industries. The aim of this paper is to characterize the pharmaceutical supply chains from an environmental perspective. Our methodology provides a novel contribution to the literature describing green supply chain management, since no detailed analysis of the environmental aspects of the pharmaceutical industry has been carried out this way. Our results can inform pharmaceutical businesses and policymakers about the limiting factors of green supply chain management in the pharmaceutical sector and provide insights to overcome hindrances and to design new tools. By looking at the supply chains of the pharmaceutical sector, we demonstrate that the potentials of green supply chain management may be limited by several factors. First, the relationship between pharmaceutical substance suppliers and medicinal product manufacturers is characterized by long-term partnerships and strong interdependence. Second, interviews suggest that consumers neither have environmental expectations towards medicinal products, nor act in an environmentally conscious manner regarding the disposal of medicinal products. Third, our findings on actual environmental measures implemented by companies suggests that the specific characteristics of pharmaceutical supply chains, such as strict quality and health requirements, impose severe limitations on the greening of supply chains. This study builds on the analysis of the international literature, through which it presents the issues of green supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry. Our research can be useful to national and international readers as well.