Why the patient care pathway may be the missing ingredient in life sciences sustainability business cases
Life sciences companies do not lack sustainability opportunities. They can:
reduce emissions from manufacturing;
improve clinical trial efficiency;
engage suppliers;
optimise logistics;
reduce waste;
improve resource efficiency; and
accelerate the adoption of digital health solutions.
However, many sustainability leaders recognise a familiar frustration: securing approval, funding, and organisational commitment is often much harder than identifying opportunities.
A forum for this discussion
On Wednesday 16th September at Hatfields Conference Centre, sustainability leaders from across the life science industry will come together to discuss driving sustainability impact at Health Industry Leaders' Decarbonising Life Sciences conference.
During the morning's presentations, James Edney, our Head of Sector for Life Sciences, will host a presentation addressing common challenges faced by life sciences professionals, and discussing the opportunities the patient care pathway offers sustainability leaders.
BIP.Verco is also pleased to be exhibiting at the event, and you’ll be able to find us in the networking surgery.
Throughout the event, industry leaders from across the NHS, Sustainable Healthcare Coalition and more will explore sustainability opportunities across innovation, manufacturing, waste, and the supply chain. Underpinning all these areas is the need for successful businesses cases that unlock the project approval and make impact possible. Which leads to our next question...
Why do business cases fail?
The characteristics of unsuccessful business cases (and winning ones) was a central theme of our recent report, Is the Business Case for Climate Action Broken?
The report explores the experiences of sustainability practitioners across industries, based on conversations during London Climate Action Week. One of the clearest findings is that climate projects rarely fail because organisations doubt they can be delivered. Instead, it’s all about the framing and focus. If the focus does not align with wider business priorities, finance and strategy, the case is doomed from the start. In order for sustainability initiatives to be given proper consideration, it’s important to emphasise the very real cost of both action and inaction.
Find out more about the report
What are the challenges particular to life sciences?
Many of healthcare and life sciences’ most significant sustainability challenges and opportunities exist beyond the boundaries of any single organisation. They sit in the interactions, handoffs, and decisions that shape how patients move through the healthcare system, so the full patient care pathway must be considered.
Our recent report on the patient care pathway – Beyond Organisational Boundaries – explored what this wider framing means for sustainability leaders working in the life sciences and the benefits it can bring.
Find out more about the report
A key takeaway from our recent reports
Viewed together, these two pieces of work suggest an important idea. We believe that the patient care pathway is not simply a framework for identifying sustainability opportunities. It may also be a framework for building stronger business cases for them.
What are the limits of organisation-centric business cases?
Many sustainability initiatives are still justified using metrics that sit almost entirely within organisational boundaries.
Discussion of these initiatives often focuses on carbon reduction, energy savings, regulatory compliance or reporting requirements. While these are important considerations, they rarely capture the full value of a project.
This becomes particularly problematic in life sciences, where patient outcomes are shaped by a complex network of manufacturers, providers, clinicians, suppliers, digital health platforms and care settings. Patients experience a pathway, not a single organisation.
The consequence is simple: sustainability leaders can end up presenting smaller business cases than the opportunity truly deserves.
A pathway perspective changes what gets valued
Patient care pathway framing encourages organisations to look beyond isolated environmental outcomes and consider the broader impact of decisions across the healthcare system.
Rather than asking:
“How much carbon will this intervention reduce?”
Leaders can ask:
“What value will this intervention create across the patient care pathway?”
The answer often extends far beyond emissions reductions.
A sustainability initiative might also create value that a narrow environmental calculation misses — fewer unnecessary appointments, more efficient use of clinical capacity, or a more resilient supply chain, for example. Neither of our reports is able to put numbers on benefits like these, but they illustrate the kind of value a pathway lens can help organisations notice and build into a business case.
This shift is important. Our business case research found that the strongest investment cases position climate action as a contributor to wider business objectives rather than as a standalone sustainability initiative. Successful cases connect directly to strategic priorities and demonstrate value that multiple stakeholders can recognise and support.
Our research points to a specific tool for capturing this kind of value: an extended total cost of ownership model. Rather than relying on a simple return-on-investment calculation, it deliberately widens what gets counted — avoided risk, resource productivity, downstream utilisation — so that pathway-level benefits have somewhere to go inside a conventional business case, rather than sitting outside it as separate sustainability narratives.
How can we move from sustainability projects to pathway transformation?
The life sciences sector's key challenge is deciding where to focus first and how to secure the investment required to act.
The patient care pathway offers a valuable way of reframing that challenge. It encourages organisations to evaluate sustainability initiatives not only through the lens of environmental performance, but also through their contribution to patient outcomes, operational effectiveness and healthcare system value.
In doing so, it helps sustainability leaders address many of the characteristics associated with successful business cases: stronger strategic alignment, broader definitions of value, more decision-useful data and wider stakeholder ownership.
Ultimately, the strongest sustainability business cases may no longer be sustainability business cases at all. They may be patient care pathway business cases, in which climate action is positioned as a means of improving the performance of the healthcare system itself.
Connect with us at the Decarbonising Life Sciences conference
Life science experts James Edney, Andrew Todd, Alex Jones and Vincenzo Epifani will attend the conference on 16th September this year.
James heads up our life sciences sector here at BIP.Verco, and Andy, Vincenzo and Alex have a wealth of experience in life sciences across different areas of the patient care pathway. They're all keen to chat about how the patient care pathway framing for sustainability can be used to support drive impact on sustainability.
If you’d like to set up an informal chat with any of the team, either at the event or at another time, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Download the business case for climate action report
Download the patient care pathway report
