This paper reports on working findings in an action research-based project, implementing a green kaizen pilot in a European pharmaceutical manufacturing company. The aim of the study is to investigate how continuous improvement initiatives with focus on environment originally developed for the automotive manufacturing industry could apply to the pharmaceutical industry. It also aspires to understand the enabling and hindering issues are for such implementation. There are considerable similarities of implementing lean in general in the two sectors, however, some key differences and challenges were apparent when implementing this specific green kaizen method called Green Performance Map. An implication for pharma practitioners implementing the green kaizen method concerns how to improve working procedures and production equipment to become more environmentally friendly amid high regulatory demands on process quality. Implementation challenges are discussed in terms of fidelity, locus and extensiveness of lean practices implementation. © 2018, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.