Pharma.Aero, in partnership with Smart Freight Centre, has launched the Multi-Use Pharma Logistics – Frameworks for Packaging & Asset Circularity (GAPL 3) project, a new cross-industry initiative exploring how circular packaging and asset management can strengthen sustainability, operational efficiency, and emissions transparency across pharmaceutical cold chain supply chains.
As pharmaceutical logistics increasingly relies on reusable temperature-controlled packaging systems and transport assets, understanding how these resources circulate throughout the supply chain has become a growing challenge. While forward logistics flows are becoming more efficient, circular activities such as reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling remain fragmented, inconsistently measured, and insufficiently reflected in Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions accounting.
The GAPL 3 project aims to develop a practical, industry-aligned framework to improve the understanding, measurement, and optimisation of circular packaging and asset flows.
The initiative will examine how circularity is currently implemented across pharmaceutical supply chains, with particular attention to end-to-end visibility, greenhouse gas emissions accounting, stakeholder responsibilities, and opportunities to improve packaging reuse, asset utilisation, and overall circularity performance.
The project will also explore how the pharmaceutical logistics industry applies the principles of the circular economy through the 8R framework: Refuse, Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, and Recycle.
The project’s findings will be consolidated into industry guidance and recommendations, offering a structured cross-industry perspective on circular packaging and asset management, to help organisations improve transparency, strengthen sustainability strategies, and enable evidence-based decision-making across pharmaceutical cold chain operations.
The newly launched project represents the third sustainability-focused initiative of Pharma.Aero, building on the organisation’s previous work to advance more sustainable pharmaceutical supply chains. It follows the publication of the Green Air Pharma Logistics (GAPL 1) White Paper, which introduced the Green Lane concept for sustainable pharmaceutical air freight, and the Green Air Pharma Logistics with a Focus on Packaging (GAPL 2) White Paper, delivering tangible advances in packaging sustainability standards. Together, these initiatives reflect Pharma.Aero’s long-term commitment to developing practical, industry-driven guidance that supports both environmental sustainability and operational excellence across the pharmaceutical logistics ecosystem.
To learn more about this project, visit Multi-Use Pharma Logistics – Frameworks for Packaging & Asset Circularity (GAPL 3).