Overview

The Pharma Pollution Hub is a non-profit organisation accelerating collective action to reduce the impact of medicines on the environment.

Because the factors driving pharmaceutical pollution are complex and deep-rooted, we take a systems approach, bringing together stakeholders from across the pharmaceutical life cycle.

Together with these groups, we are raising awareness of pharmaceutical pollution, facilitating collective action planning, and driving change through a partner-led research and innovation programme.

We are an independent organisation embedded within the University of Exeter.  Being part of the research community enables us to effectively connect partners with relevant academic groups, to drive solutions-focused collaborative research.

Our MethodS

1. Raising awareness

Our public events, podcasts and blogs are aimed at making everyone more aware of why we need to reduce pharmaceutical pollution, and how we can do this.

2. Facilitating dialogue

Our Pharma Pollution Consortium brings together a wide range of stakeholders from across industry, government, the civil sector and academia. Together, we are creating a pragmatic action plan that works for all.

3. Driving action

Our aim is to accelerate social change by focusing the expertise and resources of the research community on supporting organisations as they take action. We are developing a partner-led Research for Change programme that will answer key questions and find innovative solutions.

Working Groups

Our work spans a huge remit, so we have created five working groups that each have a greater focus on specific areas of the pharmaceutical life cycle. They are highly interlinked but enable us to go into more depth when needed.

  • 1. Population health, awareness and behaviour

  • 2. Pharmaceutical design, manufacture and licencing

  • 3. Healthcare decision making

  • 4. Pharmacy sales and disposal

  • 5. Environmental monitoring and management

Pharmaceutical Pollution

A systems problem

Once pharmaceuticals are in the environment it is very difficult to remove them, so we need to prevent them getting there in the first place.  This means targeting the upstream factors (link to Blog 2) which influence how and where pharmaceuticals enter the environment and become pollutants.

We have mapped out the factors driving pharmaceutical pollution from UK healthcare.  This highlights the complexity of this issue and shows the need for a societal-wide, systems approach, if we want to create large-scale change.

A systems approach recognises that there is no quick fix solution for complex issues like pharmaceutical pollution; instead, large-scale change will require the co-ordination of stakeholders from across the pharmaceutical life cycle, to develop a co-ordinated strategy that allows the whole system to gradually evolve and become more sustainable.

Our aim is to accelerate this transition to sustainability.  We understand that each organisation has its own interests, needs and priorities, so we need to take all of these into account if we want to find effective solutions. 

We are using systems design principles and tools to identify leverage points for change across the system.

Our long-term aims are to develop a Research for Change Programme, that mobilises the academic community to support organisations as they take action.