About us
Net Positive Solutions at the Climate-Health Frontier
Climate change is having major impacts on health across the UK — from heat-related illnesses and infectious diseases to mental health challenges. These growing threats require new thinking.
Established in 2024 with a £10 million grant from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), The Net Positive Centre champions a net-positive approach: reducing harmful health impacts while maximizing the benefits of climate solutions.
Our research focuses on practical solutions — redesigning urban environments, expanding green and blue spaces, and transforming food systems — to cut greenhouse gas emissions, help communities adapt, and improve health outcomes.
We work closely with key communities and stakeholders, ensuring that our science is grounded in real-world needs and challenges.
Led by the University of Exeter and partnered with the UK Health Security Agency, Forest Research, the National Trust, and a wider network of experts, we bring together world-leading knowledge and collaboration to drive meaningful change.
Our mission is to advance scientific understanding, inform policy, and build capacity — creating a healthier, more resilient future for people and the planet.
Conceptualise
To conceptualise and identify key issues and priorities in climate change and health.
We work with communities and other partners to explore how climate, the environment, and health are connected. Using simple tools and systems thinking we aim to understand how people see risks, what matters most to them, and how these issues affect them throughout their lives.
By mapping these complex links we can find gaps in research, plan better actions, and avoid unfair outcomes. We’ll also scan for new risks and opportunities using workshops, quick literature reviews, and online research to guide future studies.
Understand
To understand current and potential health and environmental impacts.
Impacts include the adaptation and mitigation approaches within critical systems (urban, green/blue infrastructure and food systems) across the lifecourse. This work looks closely at how climate, the environment, and health are connected, using different types of knowledge and research to improve our understanding. It will assess risks from extreme weather and long-term climate changes, and link these to health impacts.
Three focus areas guide this work, based on national priorities and our team’s strengths. We aim to support systems that are fair, healthy, and sustainable.
Resilient Urban Environments: Improving things like housing and transport to reduce climate impacts and bring health benefits.
Resilient Green and Blue Spaces: Exploring how parks, trees, and waterways can support health and resilience, while managing risks like allergies or disease.
Resilient Food Systems: Looking at how changes in farming, diets, or food trade can help with climate goals and affect health and society.
These areas will also guide research and practical work across the wider project.
Evaluate
To evaluate feasibility and potential health and environment co-effects.
This part of the work will use findings from earlier themes and explore practical solutions to improve both climate and health, aiming for "net-positive" outcomes. It will focus on how to assess complex solutions using proven methods, and will create a set of tools to measure health and environmental benefits together.
These tools will be tested with users and partners to make sure they are useful and easy to apply. The goal is to be ready for future opportunities in the first five years and beyond.
A key partner, UKHSA, will help share this knowledge widely—especially with public health professionals—through a new digital service. This will offer data, tools, and resources from the project to support long-term impact.
The Centre will also focus on nature-based solutions that improve both health and the environment, while avoiding negative side effects.
Build
To build UK cross-sectoral capacity and maintain dialogue on climate change and health solutions.
This work will build a community focused on creating research, policies, and actions that improve health and reduce inequalities through climate solutions.
We’ll support researchers at all career stages through training and development, creating a strong network for learning and collaboration.
We’ll also involve policymakers, the public, and industry in finding practical solutions and understanding trade-offs, using a range of engagement methods.
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Foundational principles
Six cross-cutting foundational principles bring together and make clear connections between all four themes. These are:
Interdisciplinary approach
Sustainability
Equality, diversity & inclusion
Identifying barriers to action
Needs-led research
Involved communities
