September 2025

The Planetary Health Education Action Group hosted a webinar to connect current and prospective educators, share teaching resources, and conduct a needs assessment to shape future educational initiatives as part of Planetary Health’s 10th anniversary celebration.

WHO and UNICEF examine global progress in access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene between 2000 and 2024, highlighting gains made by billions of people worldwide. Despite these improvements, access remains uneven, with slower progress in urban areas and low-income countries.

Habitable’s new report exposes the widespread use of harmful plastic building materials, linking them to health risks, fire toxicity, and fossil fuel dependence, while offering solutions and showcasing leaders advancing safer, healthier alternatives already available.

The Lancet’s One Health Commission has now released its long-awaited final report, which redefines One Health not as a niche veterinary concern but as a global framework for managing systemic risks.

Sunscreens protects our skin from harmful solar UV radiation, but many products contain chemicals that can be harmful to saltwater and freshwater ecosystems, while preliminary findings indicate some ingredients can have health effects.

The article highlights noise pollution as a major Planetary Health issue, linking transport noise to cardiovascular, metabolic, and mental health impacts. It urges integrating noise considerations into climate, transport, housing, and environmental policies.

The analysis demonstrates how the Planetary Health framework, by integrating principles of systems thinking, precaution, and justice, provides the essential governance lens needed to diagnose and address human-induced environmental degradation.

Experts compare biodiversity pressures from fruit and vegetable consumption in the UK, India, and South Africa. Results show crop origin strongly influences impacts, with imports sometimes reducing or increasing pressure, highlighting pathways toward sustainable food systems.

Criminology can help address PFAS pollution by framing industrial emissions and exposures as a crime. Using the case of DuPont/Chemours in the Netherlands, the commentary calls for approaches that both curb new PFAS emissions and address historic exposures.