Ismahane Remonnay, Patrice Debré and Juan Lubroth
Human health does not exist in isolation. It depends on the health of animals, plants, soils, water, and the air around us. The concept of One Health, now expanded into One Sustainable Health, invites us to recognize this essential interdependence. It is no longer only about preventing disease or responding to crises, but about understanding the deep links between ecosystems — including economic, environmental, biodiversity, demographic, urban, and societal dimensions.
Our time is marked by multiple upheavals: climate disruption, biodiversity loss, chemical overload, rapid urbanization, rising inequalities, and unprecedented technological transformations. These transitions intersect and reshape our relationship with the world. In the face of such complexity, siloed approaches are no longer sufficient. We must think in systems, connect knowledge, and act collaboratively.
It is in this spirit that the One Sustainable Health for All Forum, held in Lyon in early November, reaffirmed the central role of science — not as a field reserved for researchers, but as a driver of shared transformation.
What does “One Health” mean?
Three major environmental challenges weigh on human health (as well as on animal and plant health): pollution and pesticides, food production and food systems, and the circulation of microbes. These interactions are further disrupted by climate change.
- Physical and chemical pollution of air, water, and soil induces neuroendocrine disorders, lung diseases, allergies, and autoimmune conditions.
- Food production and agronomy impact nutrition and metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
- Microbial circulation (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) supports both essential microbiomes for life and emerging or re-emerging epidemics. Two-thirds of human infectious diseases originate from animals; the earliest pandemics arose when prehistoric humans domesticated horses, sheep, and pigs.
Climate change further affects these three factors, which are interconnected, opening the concept of health — and medicine — to other sciences such as agronomy and ecology. Considering these parameters requires measurement and analysis, known as the exposome. This work informs advocacy and recommendations for policymakers (the next France-led G7 will address One Health), communities, citizens, and services, guiding preventive measures to protect the health of humans, animals, and plants. Regional and global reflections are necessary because what happens in the Amazon differs from the Rhône Valley but remains mutually influential. Health has become planetary, and science is expected to make us aware of this reality.
Science as a universal language
Everything begins with science. But science must be understood as a universal language, open — a space for exchange, experience, and learning that connects disciplines, territories, and societal actors across geographies and generations. Knowledge can no longer remain confined to publications, databases, or laboratories. It must circulate freely, be translated, shared, and applied. If sustainable health is for all, the knowledge enabling it must also be for all. Science belongs to everyone, as it is the foundation of every informed decision, responsible public policy, and useful innovation.
Yet our scientific system still struggles to fulfill this collective mission. Competition for publications and funding fragments research. Knowledge remains concentrated in a few institutions or behind access barriers. Media visibility sometimes outweighs rigor or collaboration.
It is time to rediscover scientific humility. Truth is not decreed from podiums of fame; it is built through diverse perspectives, the confrontation of ideas, and the complementarity of disciplines. Some of the most promising discoveries emerge in the shadows: in regional universities, modest laboratories, or interdisciplinary collectives where researchers, economists, engineers, veterinarians, farmers, doctors, field actors, and society work together away from the spotlight.
To practice science today is to accept learning from one another. Knowledge is a living ecosystem where natural sciences dialogue with social sciences, data intersects with narratives, and technology amplifies collective intelligence rather than fragmenting it.
From data to decision: science at the heart of transformation
The digital revolution, reindustrialization, and the rise of artificial intelligence are transforming how we produce, manage, and understand the world. Data becomes the new language of decision-making. But without reliable measurement, solid scientific methodology, and ethical governance, data can become a source of error and division.
Science plays a strategic role here: ensuring the quality of measurements, the traceability of information, and the credibility of collective decisions. Measuring is already acting; it is the starting point for industrial, environmental, and social transformation. For transition actors, measurement is no longer merely a technical tool: it becomes a governance instrument, a reference to guide, evaluate, and improve.
Digitalization and AI now allow integration of observations from life sciences, environmental, medical, and economic data. But this interconnection raises a fundamental question: who owns knowledge? If science underpins transformation, it must remain accessible, understandable, and useful to all. Sharing data is sharing the capacity to act — a matter of sovereignty, justice, and knowledge democracy. Open science is no longer a luxury; it is a condition of sustainability. Only through transparency can we build fact-based policies, truly sustainable innovations, and a stable economy grounded in trust.
Prevention, cooperation, and shared vision
Sustainable health is built on prevention. Prevent rather than repair — this is the first transformation to undertake. Humanity is the species most at risk today. When ecosystems degrade and natural resources dwindle, it is not only nature that suffers — humanity loses its vital foundation.
Prevention begins with education, which is the foundation of transformation. Understanding that health, economy, climate, and society are inseparable means thinking globally while acting locally. It also recognizes that a society’s economic health conditions its social, environmental, and human health.
The International Working Group (IWG1) on Environmental Health & Sustainability stresses the need for solidarity, multi-scale science. The goal is not to start from scratch, but to link existing initiatives, often isolated. Water, soil, and air monitoring programs, chemical pollution reduction efforts, and biodiversity restoration projects must communicate, reinforce, and network.
Instead of multiplying summits and publications, clarity, visibility, and a shared roadmap are needed: knowing what has been achieved, what is ongoing, and what remains. Coordinated action enables more efficient funding allocation, better synergy, and greater visibility for all actors. Science, in this perspective, restores trust: it connects, illuminates, and guides.
Towards collective and preventive intelligence in health
For true One Sustainable Health for All to take shape, we must think in terms of collective intelligence: connecting rather than separating disciplines; aligning rather than multiplying programs; prioritizing collective impact over individual performance.
This vision rests on three principles: continuity, openness, and synergy. Continuity ensures long-term, sustainable action. Openness recognizes that health, environmental, and development challenges know no borders. Synergy aligns efforts into coherent strategies. Health, social, digital, industrial, ecological, and economic transformation cannot rely solely on regulation — it requires a deeper geopolitical and cultural shift: a new conception of economic, social, and environmental value, cooperation, and responsibility in service of health for all.
The goal is not to multiply speeches but to unify actions. The challenge is not producing more science in an AI-shaped paradigm, but better connecting, understanding, translating, and using the science already available. AI presents new challenges, but the first task today is to leverage existing knowledge: connect it, understand it, translate it, and, above all, use it effectively.
Connect, Understand, Act — OSH for All, Lyon, 3 November 2025
Building One Sustainable Health for All is neither an abstract ideal nor a slogan. It is a collective trajectory, placing science at the heart of society and society at the heart of science. Prevention before repair, sharing before competition (though ethical, stimulating competition drives progress), and humility before certainty — for can we ever be certain in science? These are the three pillars of authentic transformation. Transformation is ongoing; only a culture of common sense, resilience, and agility ensures sustainable progress.
Researchers, institutions, businesses, policymakers, and citizens share the responsibility of transforming knowledge into action to restore biosphere health and safeguard current and future generations.
What we call One Sustainable Health for All is more than a conceptual framework. It is a societal project, where science becomes the common language of life, and every data point, experience, and collaboration contributes to a coherent whole.
The Lyon Forum is one of these pivotal moments: a space to pass the torch, share experiences, align visions, and open the way to global cooperation based on trust and clarity. It demonstrates that science, when shared, humble, and alive, can once again be one of the most remarkable forms of collective intelligence humanity has ever invented.