Pharmacy education for sustainable healthcare: a UK progress update and call to action

The pharmacy profession is currently facing significant challenges, including increased service demand, managing medication shortages, and financial pressures. Given these pressing issues, it is understandable that the more obscure threat of climate change may not be a top priority for many pharmacy professionals. The climate and ecological crisis represent the greatest health threat that humanity has ever faced. Human health is already impacted both in the UK and globally, but the effects are gradual and insidious, making the direct link difficult to see. To effectively tackle this challenge, it is essential that we first acknowledge climate and ecological breakdown and then seek to understand the specific problems it presents so that we can identify solutions for mitigation and adaptation going forward. This underscores the importance of integrating education on planetary health and sustainable healthcare into training for all pharmacy professionals—to raise awareness of the challenges so that we can work together toward viable solutions.