Highlights: “Protecting Health and Wellbeing though Environmental and Climate Implementation” – CoR’s IRGHW Meeting (1 July 2026)

On 1 July, the Interregional Group on Health and Wellbeing at the Committee of the Regions met in Brussels to discuss how better implementation of environmental and climate policy can protect public health across Europe. The session, chaired by Birgitta Sacrédeus, brought together regional politicians, EU institutions, health professionals, and civil society.

Opening remarks and regional perspectives

Birgitta Sacrédeus (Member of the European Committee of the Regions and Chair of the CoR’s IRGHW) opened the meeting by highlighting heat as a growing threat to patients and healthcare workers, calling for closer alignment between environmental and health policy.

Jules Vertriest (Climate Physician, Care Department of Government of Flanders) presented Flanders’ Climate Health Plan, describing it a “win-win” logic, where emission cuts bring direct health benefits, alongside measures to adapt to climate change impacts. He also noted a structural complexity in Belgium’s federal system, where prevention sits as a regional competence while healthcare financing remains federal. He closed with Flanders’ “Warme Dagen” campaign, reaching around 20,000 healthcare professionals and facilities, and simple tools co-developed with local “health makers,” including a popular hydration reminder card for elderly people.

Stefania Proietti (President of Umbria Region (IT) and CoR Member, CoR Rapporteur for the Environmental Implementation Review), presenting her draft CoR opinion, made the economic case for implementation, arguing that fully enforcing environmental legislation is essential for disease prevention, social cohesion, and economic resilience. Noting that regions and cities carry out most climate adaptation and much mitigation policy, she highlighted Umbria’s monitoring system for its ageing population as an example. She concluded by calling on the EU to move beyond infringement procedures, proactively support vulnerable territories, rigorously apply the “do no significant harm” principle, improve coordination across water, agricultural, and industrial policy, and strengthen action on persistent substances.

Civil society and public health perspectives

Representing the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), Ms. Milka Sokolović argued that fragmented governance, not lack of evidence, is the main barrier to implementation. She raised the “prevention paradox” – invisible success being politically unrewarding – and framed environmental implementation as an equity issue, proposing health as a shared language across sectors.

Sharing practices and implementation experiences

Michelle Renz (EU Affairs Unit for Healthacross, Lower Austria) presented HACK-IT-NET, a Interreg-funded Alpine project helping care organisations to adapt to heat. Discussion touched on tensions between air conditioning and energy savings, housing versus green space, and the challenge of sustaining support for prevention.

Key takeaways

• Inaction on EU environmental legislation costs €180 billion a year
• Heat and health are closely linked
• Regions and cities are central to turning EU policy into real protection on the ground
• Fragmented governance leaves prevention “everyone’s responsibility, and no one’s”
• The “prevention paradox” makes success invisible, and therefore politically unrewarding and underfunded
• Environmental risks compound existing inequalities, making implementation an equity issue
• Prevention offers a strong return, but its long-term and invisible benefits are a hard political sell.

The meeting reaffirmed the importance of strong cooperation between EU institutions, regional and local authorities, public health experts and civil society to ensure that environmental and climate policy is translated into concrete, territory-sensitive protection for public health across Europe.