Heat-proofing health products: Adapting to a hotter planet
Categories: Action Line 3: Innovation and production, Climate resilient and low carbon infrastructures, technologies, and supply chain, Health and climate research, Heat and cold
Organizations: Unitaid
Country: Global
The intervention
Unitaid launched a hypothesis-driven initiative to assess how heat, humidity, and climate change affect health products and to identify practical ways to protect them. The initiative is focused on understanding current risks to products, highlighting how climate change may intensify them, and guiding future investments beginning with Unitaid’s investment in heat stability that launched in October 2025. Findings were published in a public knowledge paper. Evidence from this initiative aims to drive implementation and scaling of practical solutions such as developing heat-stable products and protective packaging, expanding energy-efficient storage, improving real-time environmental monitoring with quick-response tools, building more agile delivery models informed by predictive analytics, and updating regulations / guidance to reflect climate scenarios.
Success factors
The paper’s success relied on broad stakeholder engagement, shared learning, and diverse methods of collaboration, which will be built upon with future investments. Unitaid combined literature review, surveys, and consultations with networks of partners - including implementers, manufacturers, regulators, donors, innovators, and communities - to gather perspectives. A technical meeting through the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health (ATACH) platform brought stakeholders together to validate findings, share experiences, and identify key evidence gaps, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of current and future product risks and priorities.
Recommendations
Replication of Unitaid’s approach must be evidence-based and begins with leveraging historical and projected climate data to map regions most exposed to heat and humidity risks. Gathering environmental data along supply chains to identify where products face the greatest stress is critical. Analysis of these data then informs risk management practices and guides targeted interventions. Engaging manufacturers, users, and communities ensures context-specific, co-created solutions. Quality testing and historical data help identify high-risk products to protect. Using this evidence to prioritise investments and partnerships accelerates innovation and closes key solution gaps in climate-resilient health supply systems.
Key resources
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