*POSTPONED* GSI Seminar Series - Dr Kelly Thornber, Medicines in Our Waters: Reducing Pharmaceutical Pollution through a Systems Approach

The health and economic benefits of pharmaceuticals are enormous.  They are essential for modern healthcare systems and important for our economy.  However, pharmaceuticals also have considerable carbon, water and chemical pollution footprints which are contributing towards climate change, biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance and dwindling freshwater supplies.  We urgently need to find and implement solutions that minimise the environmental costs of pharmaceuticals without jeopardising their health and economic benefits. 

The Pharma Pollution Hub (PPH) is a new think tank dedicated to finding pragmatic solutions through a systems-based approach.  Over the past 24 months our Consortium of 70 thought leaders from across the pharmaceutical, healthcare and environmental sectors has been working together to understand the UK healthcare pharmaceutical system and identify 38 leverage points for systemic change.  In this talk I will first outline the complexities surrounding the issue of pharmaceutical pollution from UK healthcare, which epitomises a sustainable development challenge.  I will then describe how we have applied a systems thinking and sustainability transitions approach to explore the breadth and depth of the issue, to identify leverage points for change, and to establish our new think tank as an independent platform for collective, systemic action.

Kelly is a Research Fellow in sustainable development, specialising in finding solutions to address the issues of pharmaceutical pollution and antimicrobial resistance. 

She is the Co-Director of the Pharmaceutical Pollution Solutions Hub, hosted at the University of Exeter.  Kelly’s research uses systems thinking and public engagement methods to better understand the broad societal context of pharmaceutical pollution and antimicrobial resistance in aquatic environments.  She works with the private sector, non-profit organisations, policy makers and public groups, both in low- and high-income contexts, to collectively identify and prioritise pragmatic, cross-sectoral solutions. 

Kelly has published articles on these issues in relation to human healthcare, food production, science communication and global policy.  Her goal is to expedite the transition to the sustainable use of pharmaceuticals in human healthcare and food production systems.

Please email the GSI to register your interest in attending at infoGSI@exeter.ac.uk