Measuring R&D impacts and valorising material flows
Chiesi Farmaceutici
The context
The goals
Circularity's contribution
The results
Chiesi Farmaceutici
Chiesi Farmaceutici is an international family-owned pharmaceutical group headquartered in Parma, with a presence in over 30 countries. Long committed to the research and development of innovative therapeutic solutions, the group has made sustainability a strategic pillar of its business vision — with the objective of integrating environmental responsibility across every area of the organisation, including those historically most difficult to govern.
The context
For a group like Chiesi, sustainability does not stop at production: it extends to every business function, including research and development. R&D is historically one of the most complex areas to govern from an environmental perspective — resource-intensive, with heterogeneous processes and still lacking consolidated benchmarks at sector level.
Measuring the impacts of Clinical Trials and optimising the waste flows generated by research activities is not simply a reporting exercise: it is a concrete step towards genuinely integrated sustainability, capable of generating value both environmentally and operationally.
The goals
To quantify the environmental impacts associated with conducting a Clinical Trial within activities under direct company control, and to gain a structured understanding of the waste flows generated by R&D — identifying concrete opportunities for material recovery and valorisation.
Circularity's contribution
The project developed across two complementary workstreams.
Life Cycle Assessment of Clinical Trials
Circularity conducted an LCA analysis on a target Clinical Trial, precisely defining the scope of activities under Chiesi's direct control and translating their impacts into robust and comparable environmental metrics. The approach provided the company with a granular reading of each phase of the trial, identifying the main hotspots in terms of emissions and resource consumption, and offering a concrete analytical foundation for future eco-design choices and process optimisation.
Management and valorisation of R&D waste
On the waste management front, Circularity mapped the output flows from research and development activities, identifying the categories of greatest quantitative and environmental relevance. Building on this analysis, tailored recovery scenarios were developed for each priority category — assessed in terms of economic benefit and impact reduction — to guide Chiesi towards more circular and conscious management models.
The results
The two projects have equipped Chiesi Farmaceutici with concrete tools for assessing and governing its impacts within R&D. The LCA analysis of Clinical Trials provided a structured dataset on the environmental impacts of clinical research, integrable into ESG reporting processes and future operational assessments. The waste flow mapping identified recovery opportunities that had previously gone unaddressed, with quantifiable benefits both environmentally and economically — opening the way towards more circular management of the resources employed in research.
Turn climate goals into concrete actions
With Circularity by your side, it's easier.