Corporate report

Sustainability and climate change: opportunities for PHE

Published 25 October 2016

1. Background

Environmental changes bring risks and opportunities that we must all be aware of to protect and improve the nation’s health.

PHE has an important role to play in protecting the health of current and future generations from the worst impacts of environmental threats like climate change. We have the scientific expertise, a public health leadership role and can set an example as an employer.

Our primary goal is to protect and improve the nation’s health. We must be aware of the risks of global environmental issues, as well as the potential public health benefits of taking action, if we are going to achieve this goal.

2. Opportunities

We need to inspire public health professionals to make sustainability part of their everyday work and consider how policies and practices may have to be adapted as our climate changes.

There are many opportunities for PHE to do this, including:

  • lowering the health risks by encouraging improvements in wellbeing through better nutrition and more physical activity, reducing addiction, improving air quality and road safety
  • improving our resilience through education, housing, public spaces and community engagement
  • make sure that our health and care services are sustainable and that every opportunity, plan, policy and contact supports healthy lives, communities and the environment in the long term

3. Successes

We are already moving ahead with this work. We have:

  • organised an expert group to inform everything we need to do to make sustainability part of our everyday work and steer further work across the public health system
  • published reports about the specific health threats which climate and other environmental changes will bring
  • contributed to cross-government and stakeholder publications on the health implications of climate change
  • implemented a Sustainable Development Management Plan, made annual reductions in the size of our carbon footprint and continued to review our operations to ensure sustainability is embedded in all that we do
  • published a blog highlighting the issues around climate change and sustainability informed staff policies that encourage sustainable practices to become normal work practice
  • developed a research programme that contributes to the wider knowledge on health, prevention and adaptation to climate change

We can all play a part in making the changes we need to protect the public’s health now and in the future.