Health-EU newsletter 246 - Focus

Working together to create a sustainable future for all to INHERIT

Caroline Costongs, Director of EuroHealthNet (the European Partnership for Health Equity and Wellbeing), advocates linking better health and reduced inequalities with climate initiatives, in what she describes as a ‘triple-win’ approach. She draws on the outcomes of the EU-funded INHERIT initiative, which held its final conference on 10 December 2019.

Why link the environment and equity with health?

The climate and ecological crises pose a grave threat to public health. Tackling them is urgent and will require governments, businesses, communities and individuals to make changes. The health sector, too, has a key role to play, not only by greening healthcare systems, but also by seizing this opportunity to work together to enable and encourage sustainable, healthy behaviour change.

We must also recognise that people facing socio-economic disadvantages will be the hardest hit by climate change, and benefit the least from measures taken to address it. The INHERIT initiative has spent four years analysing the links between health, environment and equity, and is now calling for an integrated ‘triple-win’ approach to tackle interconnected environmental and social challenges: reduce environmental impacts, improve health, and increase health equity.

How can these changes really be instigated?

Things will only change when everyone is on board. We need to encourage communities to take action, for instance, by providing them seed funding and political support.

Take for example the Food Garden in Rotterdam, a community garden that provides organic food for lower-income families. Staffed by volunteers, it uses a hybrid business model (with funding from private, collective and public sources). It makes a positive impact in many ways: it provides job training and helps unemployed people to re-enter the job market, produces healthy, sustainable food, and greens up an urban area. This bottom-up approach is vital for change, and should be encouraged and supported urgently and at a large scale, from local to EU-level.

The Food Garden is just one initiative INHERIT looked at: it conducted in-depth analyses of 15 ‘triple-win’ case studies in 12 countries, looking at sustainable and healthy living (green space, energy efficiency), moving (active transport) and consuming (production and consumption of food). The lessons we learned can help policymakers adopt an integrated approach, link budgets and align legislation to spark action.

Can individuals do anything?

Absolutely! Nothing is too small to be a big help. The individual choices people make can help us transition to more sustainable societies. But it is crucial not to blame people for their current behaviour. We all know it is hard to change: we need to have the motivation, capability and opportunity to do so. Deciding to do things differently can be harder for less well-off and vulnerable people, who are often ‘locked-into’ their day-to-day circumstances. Policymakers can help by creating social and physical environments that make it easier for people to adopt positive changes. We also need to make it attractive and affordable to enjoy healthy, sustainable food, green spaces and active transport.

Leading EU, national and local policymakers, researchers, and economists discussed these topics at INHERIT’s final conference. It is now time to back those words with urgent action and create a sustainable world that can indeed by inherited by generations to come.

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