CPHI Milan will bring together leaders from across the pharmaceutical supply chain for the inaugural CPHI Sustainability Summit, taking place at Fiera Milano on October 6–7, 2026.
Sponsored by SK Pharmteco, Alperia, AstraZeneca, Sharp, ERM, Pharma LCA Consortium, AllocNow and gesco, the two-day Summit will convene more than 300 companies and organisations from across the industry to share practical approaches, foster collaboration and accelerate progress on sustainability.
The sponsors will bring expertise from manufacturing, packaging, supply chain, technology, procurement and sustainability. Their involvement reflects a central premise behind the Summit: many of the industry’s biggest sustainability challenges cannot be addressed by individual companies in isolation. Progress increasingly requires collaboration between manufacturers, suppliers, customers, industry bodies and solution providers across the value chain.
The Summit builds on the work of the CPHI Sustainability Collective, an industry-wide initiative established by CPHI to connect sustainability leaders, manufacturers, suppliers, associations and solution providers. Through the Collective, participants have identified common barriers to progress and highlighted the need for a dedicated forum focused on implementation and measurable outcomes.
Across two days, the Summit will feature more than 20 expert-led content sessions and working groups and interactive discussions, covering areas including sustainable manufacturing, supply chain decarbonisation, packaging innovation, green chemistry and embedding sustainability into commercial and operational decision-making.
A significant part of the programme will examine the practical tensions companies encounter when attempting to deliver sustainability on scale.
The Sustainability Power Hour, featuring organisations such as BioPhorum, Alliance To Zero, SHC, PSCI alongside other speakers, will bring industry leaders together to examine a fast-paced overview of the most impactful industry collaborations driving sustainability today.
In The Advocate & The Enabler: A Fireside Reality Check on Sustainability session, will examine the realities of turning corporate sustainability objectives into operational change.
The interactive Hackathons Hack the Friction: Buyer Solutions Lab session and Supplier Sprint: From Challenge to Offer will focus on the suppliers as they take a problem-solving approach to barriers within sustainable procurement, bringing participants together to identify practical ways of addressing the friction that can prevent sustainability objectives translating into purchasing decisions.
The programme will also tackle one of the industry’s most challenging commercial questions: who pays for more sustainable solutions? In the workshop entitled Green Extra Cost: How Can We Absorb Them Along the Value Chain? Speakers from Alliance to Zero will examine how additional sustainability costs can be managed and shared across pharmaceutical supply chains.
Silvia Forroova, Director of Partnerships & Sustainability at CPHI and founder of the CPHI Sustainability Collective, said: “The industry has reached a point where sustainability conversations need to translate into decisions and action. The challenges involved are interconnected, from procurement and manufacturing through to packaging and the wider supply chain, and no single organisation can solve them alone.
“What makes this Summit important is the involvement of partners and experts from across that ecosystem. We want to create an environment where people can openly address the barriers they are facing, learn from what others are already doing and work together on solutions that are both environmentally meaningful and commercially realistic.”
The Summit will use workshops, working groups, solution labs and collaborative sessions to encourage participants to share experience and develop approaches that can be applied within their own organisations.
The event takes place alongside CPHI Milan, with Summit registration providing access to all three days of CPHI Milan and the opportunity to connect with stakeholders from across the global pharmaceutical development and manufacturing supply chain.
