How can pharmaceutical companies use automated software to measure and manage the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and environmental footprint of their entire product portfolio — accurately, efficiently, and at scale?

That’s the key question Merck and AllocNow will address in their joint presentation at CPHI Frankfurt 2025, taking place on Wednesday, October 29 at 3:30 PM in the Sustainable Futures Theatre.

The talk, titled “Transparency at Scale – Automating Lifecycle Assessments for Pharmaceuticals,” will feature:

• Lisa Schlereth, Healthcare Product Carbon Footprint Lead, Merck

• Benjamin Kühne, Global Lead – Sustainability Assessments, Merck

• Daniel Bochnitschek, Co-Founder & Managing Director, AllocNow

Why Lifecycle Assessments Matter in Pharma: Driving ESG Compliance 

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly expected to supply product-level climate data that is precise, actionable, and aligned with evolving sustainability frameworks and ESG reporting requirements. For companies managing hundreds or thousands of SKUs across diverse pharmaceutical supply chains, achieving that level of detail and consistency is a strategic differentiator — enabling better decisions, reporting, and progress toward decarbonization.

Lifecycle assessments (LCAs) offer a powerful means to deliver that transparency — provided they can scale reliably, swiftly, and consistently across entire product portfolios.

A New Approach to LCA: Automated, Scalable, and Industry-Focused

The presentation outlines how Merck and AllocNow are collaborating to establish a more consistent and efficient approach to Lifecycle Assessments — one that meets the demands of large and complex pharmaceutical and chemical portfolios.

At the core of this collaboration is the AllocNow Product Sustainability Platform, which:

• Leverages transactional data as a reliable foundation

• Enables hands-off modelling for streamlined calculations

• Applies a harmonized LCA approach across all products aligning with leading industry standards like the Together for Sustainability (TfS) PCF Guideline

• Provides unrestricted access to product sustainability data at scale

This approach allows Merck to make environmental impact data broadly available to decision-makers — creating consistency, increasing efficiency, and building readiness for evolving ESG compliance sustainability expectations.

Preparing for PAS2090 and Beyond

The presentation will include an outlook on PAS2090:2025, the upcoming pharmaceutical product category rule (PCR) developed by the Pharma LCA Consortium, in collaboration with NHS England and the British Standards Institution (BSI). This new standard aims to provide clear guidance for robust and comparable LCAs across the sector.

The AllocNow Product Sustainability Platform is built to adapt to these emerging requirements — providing a scalable and structured path toward sector-wide alignment and reliable Scope 3 reporting.