Who are we ?
Health for future is a global movement of healthcare professionals committed to protecting the climate and the environment. Founded in Germany, it brings together over 3,000 students, nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, carers and anyone else interested in health and environmental issues, regardless of their training, in more than 70 active local groups. The Swiss association was created in April 2022 and comprises 6 active groups in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne and Zurich.
We’re open to anyone interested in getting active!
Why is it important ?
The climate crisis is an unfair health crisis
At Health for Future, we are committed to climate justice and the preservation of the natural conditions of life and biodiversity necessary for our health. As the WHO states, the climate and environmental crises are the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Everyone is affected, but vulnerable and disadvantaged populations suffer the most from the dramatic consequences of this crisis, even though they contribute the least to it. These include extreme weather events, water shortages, malnutrition, infectious diseases and mental health problems. Poverty and discrimination are causes of illness, and the climate crisis exacerbates existing inequalities: social and ethical aspects must therefore be taken into account in the fight against global warming.
Our healthcare system is polluting
The healthcare system worldwide accounts for 5.2% of greenhouse gas emissions, twice as much as air traffic! Rather than doing harm, our healthcare system needs to adapt to reduce its environmental footprint and become more resilient in the face of health problems caused by environmental degradation, in particular by promoting prevention and health promotion.
Protecting the climate means protecting health
Fair climate and environmental measures are often beneficial to our health: these are the health and environment co-benefits. Positive effects include, for example, contact with nature, active mobility, healthy and sustainable eating, better social links and care for mental health. Planetary health is an evidence-based approach to health that examines the links between changes to ecosystems caused by human activities and their impact on health. Its aim is to develop solutions that contribute to a fair, sustainable and healthy world.
Our vision
At Health for Future, we are convinced that healthcare professionals are agents of change for climate justice. Our aim is therefore to give healthcare professionals the means to become involved in their own transformation project for climate and environmental justice. We support the transformation of the healthcare system to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 at the latest. Our mission is also to integrate the interdisciplinary and longitudinal theme of planetary health into medical and nursing training.
At present, the economic system based on unlimited growth, power and the accumulation of material wealth, rather than on equitable distribution and respect for planetary boundaries, is causing massive and inescapable damage to our planet and to the health of living beings. To achieve climate and health justice, we must not only treat the symptoms, but also tackle the causes. That’s why we’re going beyond the healthcare system to push for a radical transformation: the solutions to the climate crisis require a fundamental change to the economic system and society as a whole.
We are aware that we are not exemplary, and we accept our responsibility as co-authors of global emissions. We take care at all times to act within planetary boundaries, but we live in a society of contrasts that makes it impossible for individuals to set an example in terms of climate change.
We are committed to a world without discrimination, and are aware that we ourselves are not free from such patterns of thinking, and we are self-critical of them.
We act non-violently and are open to all people regardless of age, disability, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and identity, employment status, family status, nationality, gender or religion. We are an intrinsically political movement, and can support and collaborate with parties that share and defend the same values as we do. We work with other actors and organisations in the climate justice movement and the health sector. We are committed to the community, and one of our aims is to inform citizens, on the basis of evidence, about the links between health, climate and the environment, and to propose projects for individual and collective transformation.
Our methods of action
- Communicate on climate change and environmental degradation as a key health issue.
- Raise awareness among the general public, other healthcare professionals and political leaders of the consequences of environmental crises, particularly climate change, on health.
- Demonstrate the potential of a sustainable lifestyle adapted to the climate for health (individual and public) by promoting the co-benefits of health and the environment.
- Develop plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the healthcare sector, with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality.
- Develop individual and collective psychological support measures to deal with the consequences of the climate crisis on mental health.
- Integrate planetary health content into research and teaching in health training courses.
- Promote a solid network of health professionals committed to the environment.
Reasons to act
- Because direct measures to protect the climate represent the greatest opportunity to improve individual and overall health and prevent chronic diseases.
- Because a change in lifestyle can both contribute to climate protection and play a central role in preventing and treating the major diseases of our time.
- Because compliance with the 2015 Paris climate agreement will, according to the WHO, lead to one million fewer deaths every year until 2050.
- Because, according to the latest estimates, the health benefits of climate protection are twice as great as the costs.
- Because the healthcare sector has a significant ecological footprint, and more efficient use of resources could reduce health risk factors and over-treatment.
