On this page
The Climate Crisis and Your Health
More and more people are beginning to recognise the climate crisis is not just an environmental issue, but also affects our health and wellbeing. Taking action can lead to better outcomes for your health and the planet.
This short video from The Grantham Institute introduces this well:
Understanding your impact
Your carbon footprint
While we can’t solve the climate crisis through individual actions alone, the choices we make every day can help build momentum for wider change – encouraging governments and organisations to act too. Checking your own carbon footprint can be a useful starting point.
A carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2) an individual, activity, or organisation produces. Energy use, travel, food consumption, and waste production are some of the contributors that can be used to calculate an individual’s carbon footprint. Measuring our carbon footprint helps us understand exactly how our everyday actions are impacting the environment. A carbon footprint is measured in equivalent tonnes of CO2, to help us standardise the climate change potential of different sources, make comparisons, and aim for trackable targets. Understanding where your emissions come from is key to reducing them.
- Take a look at the Worldwide Fund carbon footprint calculator: A quick way to estimate your footprint based on your lifestyle.
Lifestyle
It’s always important to discuss any decision about your medical care with the appropriate healthcare professional.
Healthy sustainable diets
Adopting a sustainable diet is good for both you and the environment. This kind of diet focuses on eating more plant based foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. There is an emphasis on reducing highly processed foods and red meat.
This diet can help maintain a healthy weight, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of long term disease like diabetes. Choosing seasonally and locally sourced foods where possible will also decrease the environmental impact your diet has.
If you’re interesting in making your diet more sustainable, head to the British Nutrition Foundation for more information and Plant Based Health Professionals have lots of resources and fact sheets.
Diets that are low in animal products and high in vegetables protect us from heart disease, bowel cancers and many other conditions. This planetary health plate from Canada gives guidance on how to achieve a healthy and sustainable diet. The Lancet Commission has also produced a similar planetary health diet.
It can be hard for families in hardship to buy fresh vegetables, and it is also often difficult for families working long hours to cook from scratch. Some areas in the country have amazing projects to reclaim supermarket and other surplus food and make it into healthy nutritious meals at low, or no, cost, for local people. FareShare is a national charity collecting food surplus from supermarkets etc to distribute to those in need. Your local social prescriber may also be able to help.
As well as the myriad planetary harms and cruelty of intensive animal farming, intensively farmed animals are often routinely given antibiotics, increasing antibiotic resistance. This makes us far more vulnerable to antibiotic-resistant disease, which threaten to make many routine operations impossible and simple infections untreatable in the future.
As an additional issue to consider, ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) are bad for health and bad for the environment. See Ultraprocessed People by Chris Van Tulleken which includes an assessment of the environmental effects of UPFs as well as the effects on health. ”
Your home
Insulation
Insulating your home reduces fossil fuel burning and also saves you money. Everybody can benefit from home insulation, even if you don’t feel you are living in fuel poverty. Many people have installed domestic wood burning stoves, believing they were doing the right thing by using a sustainable source of energy, but sadly wood burning stoves contribute large amounts of air pollution (see section below), causing health harms inside the home and to the wider community, and are best avoided.
Fuel poverty
Fuel poverty affects over 4 million UK households. Cold weather has a direct effect on the incidence of heart attack, stroke, respiratory disease, flu, falls and injuries and hypothermia. Indirect effects include mental health problems, and the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning by poorly maintained or ventilated appliances. Fuel poverty services (usually available on local council websites) can provide free assistance to find cheaper energy tariffs, practical draught-proofing actions and access to financial help. Your community support worker or social prescriber may also be able to help with this.
With current rising energy costs we hope this information leaflet by Severine Turgis for Future Collaborations will come in handy – this is mainly aimed at NHS staff but also gives some general guidance on how to get help with bills, and how to make your home more efficient.
These organisations also offer advice and support:
- National Energy Association offer advice online, on the phone and also have frontline workers
- Citizen’s Advice are an excellent organisation that can direct you to help locally too
Nature
You don’t have to be doing strenuous exercise to still enjoy the benefits of being outdoors. Many local organisations offer low-key activities, such as species-spotting or gentle guided walks, that don’t require physical exertion and are ideal for people with limited ability to exercise. To help you get started, your practice may have a social prescriber who can connect you with suitable local services and even support you in attending for the first time. If you’re interested, please speak to your GP or ask the practice reception team to refer you to your social prescriber.
Gardening 4Health is a ‘Directory of Social and Therapeutic Horticulture’ in the UK set up by a GP. You can find your local Gardening opportunities here.
If you enjoy ocean sports or activities such as swimming or surfing, consider how you could support ocean health by visiting Healthcare Ocean.
One example of a nature group in Sheffield
If you enjoy ocean sports or activities such as surfing, consider how you could support ocean health by visiting Healthcare Ocean.
Prevention and keeping healthy
Preventative medicine includes things such eating healthily, exercising, attending screenings and vaccinations, and looking after your mental wellbeing. One simple way to implement a preventative approach is through active travel, like walking or cycling instead of driving short distances. This has the double benefit of improving your fitness and reducing air pollution, supporting a healthier environment for everyone!
Research from the New Economics Foundation found that the ways to good mental health include the five ways to well being, which are: Connect, keep Learning, be Active, take Notice, Give. In 2018, Dr Phil Hammond added three more ingredients (Eating well, Relaxing well and Sleeping well) to this to make the acronym CLANGERS.
Choosing activities that cover these areas five ways to wellbeing will help our mental health, and nature based activities such as “Green Gym” (see above) are amongst the few activities that can cover all of these. Taking part in these activities also contribute to relaxing well and sleeping well!
Active travel and exercise
Active travel is a way of incorporating physical activity into necessary journeys (e.g. walking, cycling or scooting), so you help your own fitness and the planet at the same time. Cyclists are exposed to less pollution than car drivers or bus passengers, and have the added benefit of keeping fit as they travel to work. For a bit of confidence into the saddle, Bikeability is a charitable organisation offering training for children and adults.
Ways to get active
- The Active 10 app encourages activity for 10 minutes at a time.
- Park Run is a national organisation with a number of Saturday and Sunday morning runs in local parks. The atmosphere is highly supportive to people new to running. Everyone is welcome and it is fine to walk if that is what you can manage.
- Slow Ways maps a series of walking routes across the UK. This might help you with recreational walking, active travel and exercise in nature.
- Cyclists Fighting Cancer is a charity providing bicycles for children and young people living with cancer.
- The government has released physical activity guidelines.
Balance
Exercises to improve your balance, especially from the age of 40 onwards, hugely reduce your risk of falls as you get older, and help you to live longer and with better quality of life. It’s never too late to start. Simple exercises, such as standing on one leg (or if you can’t manage that, standing with the one foot in front of the other) whilst brushing your teeth or waiting for the kettle to boil, will help with this. Tai Chi is another great way of improving your balance – why not increase the benefit by trying an outdoor Tai Chi class, and listen to the birdsong whilst you improve your life expectancy!
Period products and control
Period poverty and reusable products
A 2025 Action Aid poll suggests that around one in five people who menstruate in the UK cannot afford period products, a huge increase since 2022.
Reusable products (such as washable sanitary towels, menstrual cups and the recently developed ‘period pants’) are an excellent solution both to the expense of menstrual products and their huge impact on the environment. A disposable sanitary pad takes over 500 years to decompose, producing waste which can be toxic and hazardous to human health.
Freedom4girls is a small Leeds-based charity that supplies menstrual products including reusable sanitary protection across the UK, and also in Kenya and Uganda.
Dr Honey Smith explains more about period poverty:
Contraception and treatments that reduce bleeding
For many people, preventing periods altogether would be welcome, and it also has the effect of preventing the need for period products. Many methods of contraception can now safely reduce period frequency or stop periods altogether.
The combined pill usually makes periods lighter, and we now know it is generally safe to take 3 packets back to back, meaning that a bleed happens only every 9 weeks. The progesterone containing intrauterine device, lasting 8 years, is the first line treatment for heavy periods, and usually stops bleeds altogether. Other progesterone only methods of hormonal contraception (the mini-pill, the depo provera injection and the implant) don’t guarantee freedom from periods but usually stop or lessen bleeding considerably.
Medicines
Most of the carbon emissions in general practice come from our clinical care (testing, prescribing and using medical devices). Medications are often necessary and help us to stay well. You should never stop or change your medications without speaking to a healthcare professional.
- At all times of our lives it is worth thinking about What Matters to You, to help guide good conversations with your healthcare provider.
- When people are on lots of medications this can lead to harmful drug interactions and difficulty with taking the medications correctly. This is known as problematic polypharmacy. Annual medical reviews are good opportunities to discuss with your healthcare provider any difficulties with taking your medications, any uncertainties or questions, and to decide together which treatments are still worthwhile for you. Me and my medicines is a website which can help guide you in these discussions and The Health Innovation Network have produced excellent patient resources, including an animation, to help you make the most of your medication review.
- The Choosing Wisely initiative encourages patients and doctors to have conversations to make shared decisions on investigations and treatments based on the best evidence and each individual’s circumstances and needs.
Asthma & inhalers
Asthma is a common lung condition, affecting about 8 in 100 people. If asthma is well controlled, then people should have very few symptoms (if any) in the day, no symptoms at night and no restriction on their activities. Unfortunately, many people with asthma in the UK are living with symptoms that affect their daily life and are at risk of asthma attacks. 4 people die from asthma every day. This can be prevented by making sure people are on the right medicine, and that this medicine is getting to their airways with an inhaler they can use.
Newer combination inhalers that can improve asthma control for people aged 12 years and over and are recommended as first choice in the latest asthma guidance. If you have asthma, ask your healthcare professional if this is suitable for you. You may also want to ask about options for different types of inhaler devices.
The most common inhalers used in the UK are metered dose inhalers (MDIs), also known as aerosol spray inhalers or puffers. These contain propellants gases (hydroflourocarbons) which are powerful greenhouse gases. This is why inhalers contribute to 3-4% of the entire NHS carbon footprint. Other countries use far more dry powder inhalers (DPIs) which do not contain propellant gases and so have a much lower carbon footprint. Many people find them easier to use. You can learn more about inhalers and the environment at greeninhaler.org
We have put together some short videos and leaflets to help people with asthma understand their condition and options for treatment. We would like to thank the Primary Care Respiratory Society and Asthma and Lung UK for their review and support of these materials. These materials are intended to support conversations with your healthcare professional. Do not make any changes to your asthma treatment without first speaking to your healthcare professional and remember to always attend you annual asthma review.
Resources:
Patient Video: What is Asthma and How to Treat It?
Patient Leaflet: What is Asthma and How to Treat It?
Patient Video: Types of Inhaler Devices for People with Asthma
Patient Leaflet: Types of Inhaler Devices for People with Asthma
Do not throw used or unwanted inhalers in the bin. Return them to the pharmacy.
Please return all inhalers and other medications to pharmacies, where they will be sent for clinical incineration. This is much better than disposing of them in household waste as if they end up in landfill the propellant gases are released into the atmosphere contributing to climate change. At the moment there are no widespread inhaler recycling schemes (there is a small scale scheme in Leicestershire, see in the Local Groups East Midlands Section). Don’t put your inhaler in kerb side recycling as it won’t be recycled.
Resources
There is lots more useful information on the website: greeninhaler.org
To listen to a great BBC Radio 4 discussion about inhaler options click here.
Dr Honey Smith has created this video for patients about Asthma and the planet:
Disposal of medicines & devices
Waste ‘heirarchy’
It is worth remembering – refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle – in that order.
Reduce: If you are have problems with your medicines for any reason, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about what matters to you, and you may decide together to stop some medicines (see Medicine section above). Medications cannot be re-used once they have been taken out the pharmacy so check first if you don’t need a particular medication.
Re-use:
- Insulin Pens: Some insulin injectable pens are re-usable, which have many advantages. If you are on insulin you can ask your doctor or pharmacist if it is possible to change to a re-usable pen.
- Equipment: Many hospitals now have collection services for equipment eg crutches, walking frames etc. Check this website to check whether this service is available near you (although the website is called “Recycle”, the hospitals do re-use the equipment!).
Re-cycle:
- Insulin Pens: It’s better for the environment if you can use a reusable pen for insulin, but if you can’t, PenCycle aims to recycle/repurpose any Novo Nordisk Flextouch or Flexpen disposable pens to avoid them being sent to landfill. It has previously been piloted in 3 areas across the UK and they are now rolling this out nationwide.
- Blister Packs: There are currently 2 schemes for Blister Pack Recycling, administered at Superdrug (pharmacy stores only)and at some participating Boots Stores.
- Inhaler recycling: Some inhalers (metered dose inhalers) have a very high carbon footprint, and recycling the components is of huge importance to avoid powerful greenhouse gases getting into the atmosphere. Inhaler recycling schemes come and go, and there are, sadly, currently no nationwide recycling schemes for inhalers; but if more are set up in the future, we will be delighted to tell you about them. In the meantime, it is hugely important that these inhalers are returned to pharmacies for clinical incineration rather than going into landfill.
Unused medication
Worldwide, over 600 pharmaceuticals or their transformation products have been found in sewage or waste water treatment plant sludge. This leads to an increased antibiotic resistance and interference with growth and reproduction in aquatic organisms. Recognised negative effects include:
- Unnecessary animal suffering and potentially human suffering
- Biodiversity loss
- Speeding up ocean acidification
- Additional costs to society and public organisations
And there are likely to be further effects that we do not yet know!
All unused medications, and used hormone patches or empty hormone gel packets should be returned to pharmacies for safe disposal. Empty inhalers can also be returned to pharmacies for safe disposal.
Have a look at our waiting room video on medicines wastage reduction.
Air pollution
Air pollution and health
It is widely known and understood that air pollution damages lung health. But you might be surprised to hear that the effects of air pollution are much more wide ranging than this; air pollution is implicated in heart disease, dementia, strokes, low birthweight and many other pregnancy outcomes, and even obesity, to name but a few of its effects.
Air pollution is generated both inside and outside the home, and disproportionately affects younger people, pregnant women, those with heart and lung conditions. People living in areas of deprivation have greater exposure to air pollution.
The recommendations from the coroner’s report of the death of Ella Adoo Kissi-Debra, recorded air pollution as a cause of death for the first time. Action needed to prevent future deaths included a requirement for professional organisations to ensure education for healthcare professionals to enable them to advise patients of the risks of air pollution and how to avoid exposure to toxic air.
The UK government recently stated that they will aim to improve air quality over the next 20 years – but their target is still double the 2021 WHO target for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5). For more information on targets for air quality, see the 2021 updated guidance WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines.
The Clean Air Hub website has collected everything you need to know about air pollution in one place. It includes an air pollution forecast that can help you make decisions about areas you may wish to avoid on high pollution days. DEFRA publishes a real time update on air pollution in the UK, and WAQI provides this worldwide. For realtime worldwide and local information on air quality. There are many ways that you can personally support reductions in air pollution and improve your health by reducing car use and choosing active travel.
This short video (created for Clean Air day 2022) explores how air pollution levels can alter significantly within a few streets:
Stories
Telling your stories and hearing others can have a profound impact on us, and is a powerful way to create change. If you want us to feature your story please contact us at contact@greenerpractice.com.
Exercising in nature
“As an elderly person living on my own, I have found that keeping my mind busy is a great help. I do quite a few hobbies, knitting, painting and the best thing is being able to go outside and work in my garden and go for a walk in the park, also having an allotment is a great help it keeps you mentally stimulated and helps with well being.”
“Having suffered for years with anxiety and low self-esteem I have now found that running for on average 5 miles a day or simply going for an hour’s walk has helped me feel more positive about myself. About 5 years ago I was prescribed anti-depression tablets but after a short time I decided that they were not for me and as I had been a runner in my youth and I was a postman which meant I did a lot of walking. I feel a sense of achievement when I have completed my run and this feeling can last sometimes long periods or at times a short period but it is always a positive feeling. If anyone is suffering from anxiety I would advise you to find a sport which suits you either to do on your own which is the way I prefer or with a family member or friend, it doesn’t need to cost anything. Running or walking is free”
“I was given a leaflet by my doctor to go online, which I did, and I found it very helpful. You can do activities online or you can do various outdoor and local activities walking, group sessions..
“I benefited from the woodland walk with people that are in the same or similar situation so you can walk and chat, it takes your mind off every day life and gives your mind time to relax and enjoy the day.
“I benefit from it a lot and it does help especially if you’re having a down day as well and I’m really glad I looked at the website.”
Anonymous patients (Sheffield)
Eventually I plucked up the courage to buy a bicycle, through the salary release scheme, which made it quite a bit cheaper. My first trip had me walking for several uphill portions of the journey, and I arrived at work with legs like jelly. I had to pull myself up the stairs by my arms! Just 2 weeks later I could manage all the hills and was enjoying the 6 mile commute. Within no time that wasn’t enough cycling for me, and I now cycle to my second job in Chesterfield. People who have known me a long time would be very surprised that I have taken up cycling, as I was quite a lazybones when I was younger and didn’t undertake any exercise beyond a reasonably brisk walk!
Dr Honey Smith – GP, Sheffield