Planetary Health: New issue of “Ökologisches Wirtschaften”
Health is not a private matter. The well-being of humans, animals, and ecosystems are inextricably linked – and concepts such as Planetary Health, One Health, and EcoHealth show what this means in practice. The current issue of “Ökologisches Wirtschaften” presents them – exploring their potential, but also their contradictions. In the introduction, Dr. Vivian Frick, researcher at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), emphasizes that the transformation in the areas of sustainability and health is stagnating for similar reasons: existing power structures, the individualization of responsibility, and the polycrisis, which is pushing long-term and preventive political strategies into the background.
When structures create unequal health opportunities
Air, water, and soil pollution, as well as the consequences of climate change, pose a threat to health. Such environmental burdens have a particularly severe impact on disadvantaged groups, as demonstrated by the article “Environmental Awareness and Equal Health Opportunities” by Alexandra Karg et al., which examines the connections between environmental problems, health, and quality of life.
Structurally entrenched inequality should therefore be understood as a core issue of health and climate policy. Example: Karsten Valerius, Dr. Vivian Frick, and Janna Leipold show how power structures are blocking the transformation of the mobility system. The car-centric transport system causes well-documented ecological, health, and social problems. However, a genuine shift towards healthy mobility is being prevented on the one hand by infrastructural and economic path dependencies and on the other hand by powerful discourses that downplay the risks and damage caused by car traffic or portray them as inevitable, and reduce the transport transition to technological innovations.
In addition to changing power relations, it can also be necessary to work within existing economic structures. Measures such as urban greening promote health and environmental protection – and this value can be calculated, for example, on the basis of avoided healthcare costs and damage costs. Tarin Karzai et al. present the urban greenery assessment tool, which makes the value of urban greenery for health and environmental justice more visible in planning processes.
Cross-sector alliances and co-benefits
“Research and policy in the fields of health, environment, and climate protection must work more closely together to strengthen planetary health. Especially in times of crisis, there is a danger that socio-ecological interests will be played off against each other, even though there can be no health protection without environmental protection”, Frick warns.
Cross-sector and cross-stakeholder alliances should represent common interests and overcome fragmented policies. Initial approaches are emerging in new alliances between the health sector, civil society, and social organizations, as exemplified by the article “One Health as the Key to the Future” by Antje Risius and Gabriel Armas-Cardona. In “The Livable City Is Possible”, Ragnhild Sørensen emphasizes the potential of cooperation between local authorities and civil society initiatives. Such alliances open up new ways of combining ecological limits with social justice and making planetary health politically and socially compatible.
It is worthwhile to stand up for co-benefits together: climate protection, for example, has a positive effect on mental health. This is because an intact ecosystem is of fundamental importance for mental health, as the article by Dr. Mira Tschorn et al. makes clear.
Also in this issue: How the EU can achieve its climate targets
In the Current Reports section, Wendel Trio analyzes the EU's new climate policy targets for 2040 in his article “Fit for 90”. He critically discusses whether the planned emission reductions really do justice to the EU's global responsibility and highlights five elements that are necessary to achieve the targets: 1. a long-term vision, 2. national targets, 3. a phase-out roadmap for fossil fuels, 4. a cross-sector policy mix, 5. the preparation of follow-up instruments for emissions trading.
How can implementation be financed, for example in the mobility transition? “The money is lying on the street”, says Prof. Dr. Daniel Mühlleitner. Sustainable, affordable mobility requires large public investments. The author advises skimming off the induced increases in land value to enable a self-sustaining mobility transition.
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► Ökologisches Wirtschaften 1/2026 (mainly DE)
New and available for free download: Organizational forms in motion
Solidarity-based farms and social enterprises are alternatives to traditional economic structures – they value solidarity, cooperation, democracy, and community. This issue shows where impetus for a sustainable transformation of the economy can be found.
“Instead of certification systems made available to companies and new legal forms for companies, we are focusing on the less noticed and, in some cases, even less widespread concepts that socially and ecologically motivated actors from civil society are testing to create alternative forms of organization”, says Dr. Christian Lautermann in the introduction to the main topic.
► To the online edition of Ökologisches Wirtschaften 1/2025 (DE)
