June 24th 2025 – 16:00 – 17:30 GMT
Guest speakers
Courtney Howard, an Emergency Physician in Yellowknives Dene Territory in Canada’s subarctic, a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, and a Community Research Fellow in Planetary Health at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research.
Liz Willetts- Team Leader, Editor, and Writer, Earth Negotiations Bulletin, is a science-policy expert on global governance of the health-environment nexus.
Shama Karkal, CEO of Swasti and a public health and community organizing specialist, with a background in management, social work and social action.
How the Wellbeing of People and Planet are Connected
Exponential economic growth has led to ecological overshoot—depleting natural resources faster than they can regenerate and producing more waste than the Earth can absorb. The current economic model, focused on GDP growth, drives both social inequalities and environmental degradation, which in turn negatively impact human health.
This has resulted in cascading effects on human health (nutrition, mental health, infectious diseases) and contributed to global instability (conflict, displacement).
This session explores why planetary health must be central to any reimagination of the health system. We’ll dive into the deep interconnections between ecological sustainability, economic systems, and human wellbeing. Together, we’ll examine how the current health paradigm is entangled with extractive economic practices and how a wellbeing economy approach offers a transformative path forward.
A webinar hosted by the Health And Wellbeing Economy Working Group. Visit weall.org to learn more.