Amidst the burgeoning corpus of scholarly works dedicated to sustainability within the healthcare domain, a critical gap exists regarding how to drive pharmaceutical companies, a pivotal stakeholder, to contribute more significantly to healthcare net-zero goals. This study proposes that breadth of directors’ experiences, stemming from their diverse educational, industrial, and organizational backgrounds, serves as a catalyst for pharmaceutical firms to prioritize environmental strategies. Employing a sample of publicly listed Chinese pharmaceutical firms from 2007 to 2019, we substantiate the affirmative influence of board experiential diversity on corporate environmental strategy. Our findings also indicate that CEO power, which encompasses CEOs’ environmental expertise, amplifies the focus and commitment of pharmaceutical firms in crafting and executing environmental strategies. Additionally, the boards of non-state-owned enterprises located in economically developed regions have greater power and higher participation in the environmental decision-making process. Embracing environmental strategies proactively can bring long-term economic benefits to pharmaceutical firms.