Politics, Innovation and Change: The Path to Net Zero

Working at the intersection of politics, policy, industry, healthcare and academia, Professor Nick Watts will reflect on his time as Chief Sustainability Officer of the NHS, on the Lancet Commission on Sustainable Health Care, and his current role at the National University of Singapore. He will explore what net zero means in the context of health care, the influence of national (and transnational) politics, industry, and other stakeholder interests on advancing towards net zero across different geographical settings and unpack what works and what doesn't. He will critically reflect on the role of innovation in reaching net zero and on what is needed to bring about change and to translate solutions into practice within the boundaries of what is politically, financially and technologically possible.

Professor Watts is the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Medicine, leading NUS's efforts to accelerate the transition to net zero and resilient healthcare systems, across the world.
Prior to NUS, he worked as the Chief Sustainability Officer for the NHS in the UK, where he spearheaded their efforts to efforts to deliver low-carbon healthcare, leading the Greener NHS team with a budget of almost S$1 billion. He is a medical doctor, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians' Faculty of Public Health, and has worked as the Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown, and as the founder of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.

This talk is part of the Sustainable Health Care course on the Translational Health Sciences programme.