UCL School of Pharmacy leads on planetary health

A group of students from UCL this year completed one of the UK’s first Planetary Health Report Cards for a school of pharmacy.  This revealed UCL School of Pharmacy to have a higher overall score than for many schools of pharmacy, as well as identifying areas for improvement.   

The four students who completed the Planetary Health Report Card, Aowei Chen, Zhen Yuan, Emily Fagan and Emila Duka, did so as part of their role as UCL Sustainability Ambassadors. They worked with Professor Bryony Dean Franklin, Sustainability Lead for the MPharm degree at UCL School of Pharmacy, to collect the information required, which included talking to student representatives from each of the four years of the MPharm degree as well as UCL staff.

Professor Franklin said, “I am really proud that UCL is one of the first Schools of Pharmacy in the world to complete the Planetary Health Report Card, and would like to thank our students for their hard work in taking this forwards. I am now looking forward to working with colleagues to maintain those areas in which we scored well, and to address the areas for improvement identified, to equip our students to be future global citizens in supporting sustainability within healthcare”.

The Planetary Health Report Card is a metric-based tool for evaluating and improving sustainability in universities that provide courses for future healthcare professionals. There are five sections: curriculum content, research into sustainability, community outreach, support for student-led sustainability initiatives, and campus sustainability. Completion of these sections is student-led, with mentoring from a member of staff, with the aim of evaluating current practice and identifying areas for improvement. Originally developed by medical students to evaluate medical schools, the Planetary Health Report Card has since been adapted for nursing and pharmacy education programs.  This year, Planetary Health Report Cards were completed for ten schools of pharmacy in five countries around the world, with three of these being from the UK.

Internal links

UCL Sustainability Ambassadors scheme https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/take-action/student-action/sustainability-ambassadors

Sustainability at UCL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/

External links

Planetary Health Report Card website https://phreportcard.org/

Summary of pharmacy schools’ reports: https://phreportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PHARMACY-PHRC-2024-Summary-Report.pptx.pdf

Professor Bryony Dean Franklin bryony.deanfranklin@ucl.ac.uk 

X: @BryonyDF