Sione is the Executive Director of the Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand.  At the global level, he is the President of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE), and the founder and Co-Chair of the IUHPE Global Working Group on Waiora Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing.

IUHPE is a global professional non-governmental organisation dedicated to health promotion around the world. For more than 70 years, IUHPE has operated an independent, global, professional network of people and institutions committed to improving the health and wellbeing of the people through education, community action and the development of healthy public policy.

With 30 years of experience in leadership and management in the education and health sectors in Aotearoa New Zealand, and at the international level, Sione is an educator, a writer and public health leader. His areas of interest in health promotion include planetary health, determinants of health, human rights, and Indigenous knowledge. A former journalist and broadcaster, Sione is also a musician and poet, and the author of several books, academic papers, and children’s stories.

Under Sione's leadership, HPF successfully co-hosted the 23rd World Conference on Health Promotion in Rotorua in 2019 with IUHPE. This was the largest public health conference to be held in Aotearoa New Zealand. He was also instrumental in establishing HPF as a national accreditation organisation under the IUHPE global framework for health promotion accreditation in 2021.

In recognition of his significant contributions to health promotion and public health at the national and international levels, Sione was awarded the 2019 New Zealand Public Health Champion award by the Public Health Association of New Zealand.

Waiora[1]: Towards planetary health promotion for the wellbeing of all

Through collaborative leadership and co-creating knowledge for transformational change, the International Union for Health Promotion (IUHPE) and its partners are elevating health promotion and enhancing its efficacy to address the most significant global challenge in the world today, the health of the planet, which impacts directly on the wellbeing of our human family.

“Mounting evidence tells us that the current economic and social development paradigm of infinite growth and endless exploitation of limited natural resources is unjust and unsustainable, leading to inequities within and among countries and across generations."[2] Therefore, urgent action is needed.

As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres (2020) said, “the state of the planet is broken. Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century. It must be the top, top priority for everyone, everywhere…Indigenous knowledge, distilled over millennia of close and direct contact with nature, can help to point the way. . .  it is time to heed their voices, reward their knowledge and respect their rights.”[3]

This lecture will share the story of how IUHPE has been co-operating with its Indigenous members and other collaborators to centralise planetary health in its strategic direction and core activities. By embracing science and Indigenous knowledge with a complementary approach, IUHPE can contribute to discourses, initiatives and charters that inform policies, such as the Geneva Charter for Well-being, promulgated by the World Health Organization (WHO)[4] , and working closing with WHO and others to translate into policies and actions.

Additionally, the lecture will discuss lessons learnt from the convergence of at least four global challenges that are confronting our global village – geo-political conflicts, economic crises, environmental catastrophes, and pandemics. Further, it will explore new thinking and actions that can help us thrive our post-Covid reality: that we are a one human family on a one common home, with a choice to collaborate and flourish together or continue to fight and perish together.

Ruperta Lichtenecker PhD has been Head of Department of the Competence Center Climate and Health at Gesundheit Österreich GmbH since March 2022.

She is lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University Linz and at the Federal Academy of Administration. Ruperta Lichtenecker has more than 30 years of activity and experience as an economist, researcher, manager and supervisor in the fields of science, administration, economics and politics with a focus on: environmental economics and policy, climate change mitigation, research, innovation, public health, health economics, health promotion, technology assessment, foresight, digitalization, energy economics and policy, economics, COVID-19 management and crisis management. She holds a master’s degree and PhD in macroeconomics from the Johannes Kepler University Linz.

Climate change is the greatest health threat of the 21st century and the consequential costs of the climate crisis are the highest in the health sector. In Austria, the healthcare sector is responsible for approximately 7% of the overall carbon footprint. Therefore, there is an urgent need to take action to decarbonize the healthcare sector. Surveys and experience show considerable interest in healthcare facilities in implementing climate protection measures and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is often a lack of information and practical support within healthcare facilities. The project focuses on the co-benefits of climate action, which are in many cases also health-promoting measures.

The Competence Centre Climate and Health of the Austrian National Public Health Institute (GÖG) therefore developed the project "Climate-friendly Healthcare Facilities", which aims to support healthcare facilities in becoming climate-friendly and health-promoting to provide them with the necessary expertise and support. The healthcare facilities are supported by experts who, together with them, develop an individual climate action plan including goals and measures. The action plans cover buildings, energy, green areas, purchasing, mobility, resource and waste management, food system, etc. and also show the health-promoting effects of climate protection measures.

Additionally, other projects by the Competence Centre Climate and Health emerged from this project and support Austria’s aim in making the healthcare sector more climate-friendly and thus also health-promoting. “Climate Manager Training” was developed to train qualified climate and health experts and enable them to take a leading role in supporting healthcare facilities on the way to climate neutrality.  The “Best Practice Award for climate-friendly healthcare facilities” is a project that aims to bring best-practice projects of climate change mitigation in the healthcare sector to the forefront by initiating an award and identifying innovative pioneer projects. "Contribution to health promotion" represents primary evaluation criteria for selecting the award-winning projects. In addition, the Competence Centre also developed a “Strategy for a Climate Neutral Healthcare System”, which helps health services reduce their emissions, optimise their efficiency and environmental performance, to significantly promote the transformation to climate neutrality on a broad basis.

Doctor Päivi Meriläinen, PhD in environmental sciences, is a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare in the Department of Health Protection. She has worked in the field of environmental health for the past 15 years and her expert and research activities have focused on water security and health effects of climate change. She is involved in national level climate change adaptation work and has coordinated the climate change adaptation plan for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Currently she is also involved with work for sustainable health care in Finland.

Climate change is projected to increase health risks all across the world and especially in developing countries. Climate change may affect the functioning and operational reliability of healthcare also in Finland. Risk prevention requires healthcare and social welfare to prepare for and adapt to changes in a timely fashion. The Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the healthcare and social welfare sector, extending until 2031, may be used as an asset in these efforts.

Although the effects of climate change extend over a long time horizon, they are already visible to a certain extent. Consequently, alongside curbing emissions it is vital also that adaptation measures be launched now rather than later. Well placed in terms of both climate and economy, Finland as a developed society is fully capable of accomplishing this. Systematic adaptation nonetheless calls for an adequate knowledge base.

The Adaptation Plan provides a foundation for initiating systematic adaptation, increasing risk awareness and safeguarding the functioning of healthcare and social welfare also in the future. The focus in the Adaptation Plan is on health protection and the adaptation of healthcare. The Adaptation Plan seeks to assess the current state of adaptation in Finland and the structures supporting it and to identify existing and new adaptation measures in the health and wellbeing sector. Designed to serve as a practical tool, the Adaptation Plan will add to the volume of guidelines relating to climate change in the healthcare and social welfare sector