Global Environmental Sustainability Research Articles

The Effect of Plate and Decoration Color on Consumer Food Waste in Restaurants: A Case of Four Chinese Cities

Food waste hampers global food security, rational use of global resources and environmental sustainability. Food waste is becoming a global problem, especially on restaurants, and it is particularly important to explore more effective measures to reduce food waste. Color psychology studies show that color can influence human behavior, but how colors may affect consumer food waste behavior has not been thoroughly investigated to date. In this study, we aim to investigate whether food plate colors or restaurant decorations affect food waste behavior using a large-scale field survey in four Chinese cities (2160 samples across Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Lhasa). Our results show that the per capita food waste of all consumers in the surveyed restaurants was 80.21 g per meal, whereas the per capita food waste of those with warm-color plates was 61.83 g per meal. The results suggest that warm plate colors are associated with reduced restaurant consumer food waste. We also show that the restaurant decoration color was found to correlate significantly with the reduced amount of food ordered per capita per meal (both warm and cool colors). Cool colors for plates and decoration have a negative effect on the weight of per capita per meal food eaten. Additionally, other characteristics of consumers, such as their age, education, and income levels, and other factors, such as for the purposes of meals, were found to affect food waste behavior. Our case study suggests that further investigation into the role of color psychology may be warranted to help mitigate consumer food waste.

Response Surface Optimization of Biophotocatalytic Degradation of Industrial Wastewater for Bioenergy Recovery.

The continuous combustion of fossil fuels and industrial wastewater pollution undermines global environmental and socio-economic sustainability. Addressing this necessitates a techno-scientific revolution to recover the renewable energy potential of wastewater towards a circular economy. Herein, a developed biophotocatalytic (BP) system was examined with an engineered Fe-TiO2 to ascertain its degradability efficiency and biogas production from industrial wastewater. The response surface methodology (RSM) based on a modified Box-Behnken designed experiment was used to optimize and maximize the BP system’s desirability. The parameters investigated included catalyst dosage of 2–6 g and hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 1–31 d at a constant temperature of 37.5 °C and organic loading rate of 2.38 kgCOD/Ld. The modified RSM-BBD predicted 100% desirability at an optimal catalyst load of 4 g and HRT of 21 d. This represented 267 mL/d of biogas and >98% COD, color, and turbidity removal. The experimental validity was in good agreement with the model predicted results at a high regression (R2 > 0.98) and 95% confidence level. This finding provides an insight into RSM modeling and optimization with the potential of integrating the BP system into wastewater settings for the treatment of industrial wastewater and biogas production.

The role of economic freedom and clean energy in environmental sustainability: implication for the G-20 economies

With the increasing challenge of attaining sustainable balance in socioeconomic-ecosystem activities, the aspects of the global goals are continously being harnesed in order to ensure a sustainable interaction. As an alliance of the United Nations, the G-20 member countries have not only committed to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, the alliance body has further fostered frameworks that are targeted at advancing global economic and environmental sustainability. Within this context, the current study examined the environmental sustainability effects arising from the economic freedom prowess in the panel of the G-20 economies over the period 2000–2016. Among the sparse studies, the study employed the indices of economic freedom: freedom to trade internationally, regulation, sound money, legal framework, and property right and alongside the real income and renewable energy consumption as explanatory indicators. With the result of the difference- and two-step system GMM (generalized method of moments), the legal system and property right, sound money, freedom to international trade, and regulatory efficiency are detrimental to the panel countries’ environmental quality. Although this is likely to be untrue for countries that have advanced their climate actions and especially the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, it suggests a dearth in the SDGs achievement among the developing and emerging economies. Moreover, it probably shows the depth of traditional or business-as-usual practices (such as the lack of sustainable economic and environmental practices) and the socioeconomic system that are obtainable in most of the developing and emerging economies. Thus, the study put forward tangible policies that are essential for governance and toward attaining desirable country-specific SDGs.

Analyzing the Mediating Role of Food Insecurity between Economic Factors and Child Health in Pakistan: An Application of Haye’s Logistic Model

This study tends to assess the critical selected economic factors intervening the child health problems in Pakistan. Child health problem is of great concern and became even more important after the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals vision of Global Social, Economics, and Environmental sustainability. This study analyses the data of the Pakistan Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) 2018-19, which is the latest available data in the current year, 2022. A total frequency of 24809 households are included in the study sample and are inquired about their economic proceeding of life and their child's health problems. Child health is a derived factor that is not obviously directly affected by its socio-economic determinants. Unlike the previous studies, this study follows an indirect analysis while explaining child health determinants. Hayes' process of mediation is applied to see the role of global food insecurity in the households in the country and its implication on the child health ratio in Pakistan. This study implies a significant negative role in asset poverty. Food insecurity on the child health in Pakistan, meaning that if a household is food insecure, that will lead to a high risk of child adverse health problems and vice-versa. Moreover, there are some direct effects of asset poverty on the child's health as they assess the fiat source of finance for the household after a liquid form of monetary assets.

Perceptions of Global Citizen by Rover Scouts and Leadership Scouts

The purpose of the survey study was to examine the perception of Global Citizen by: (1) Rover, who had undergone 21 days of Scouts Leadership Training, (2) Rover, who has not undergone 21 days of Scouts Leadership Training, (3) Nazhoen Scouts who have undergone 21 days of Scouts Leadership Training, and (4) to examine whether the perceptions of Global Citizen are determined by the number of years in the Scouting. The questionnaires were administered using google form to (n=209) (Male=87, Female=122, (1) =90, (2) =74, (3) =45 (4) = (0-5 Years=48, 5-10 Years=91 ,10-15 Years=70).Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2013) Global Citizen Scale questionnaire within the total Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient of (α=.92) and nine subscales viz Normative Environment(0.86), Global Awareness(0.74), Global Citizenship Identification(0.81), Intergroup Empathy(0.65), Valuing Diversity(0.79), Social Justice(0.81), Environmental Sustainability(0.79), Intergroup helping(0.80), and Responsibility to Act(0.83) were used to examine the perceptions of Global Citizen. The results of the survey study revealed that out of the nine subscales of the Global Citizen Scale of Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2013), Normative Environment, Global awareness, Global Citizenship Identification, and Intergroup Empathy have been perceived as Somewhat Agree (5.00-5.99): Valuing Diversity, Social Justice, Environmental Sustainability, Intergroup Helping, and Responsibility to Act have been perceived as Agree (6.00-6.99). The overall perception on the Global Citizen is established at x ̅=6.09 and σ=0.90. The correlation and regression line between the number of years being in the Scouting indicated very strong and positive associations between the variables.

Melamine resin-coated lignocellulose fibers with robust superhydrophobicity for highly effective oil/water separation

• Superhydrophobic strategies based on condensation and addition reactions. • Oil spill clean-up through selective absorption and active filtration processes. • The scalable manufacturing strategy is low-cost and environment-friendly. oil pollution incidents emerge in endlessly, threatening global ecological security and environmental sustainability. It is a consensus of current scientific research to develop environmentally friendly, sustainable and degradable materials for polluted water body restoration. Cellulose is one of the most attractive candidate materials due to its abundant reserves and all-green degradability. Herein, a technique used to modify lignocellulose fibers via the condensation and addition reactions is reported, and the modified lignocellulose fibers exhibit excellent superhydrophobic and degradation properties. The modification process consists of two main steps: 1) the in situ construction of micro-nano structures on the surface of lignocellulose fibers through the condensation reaction using melamine and formaldehyde; 2) using the addition reaction between the isothiocyanate compound with low surface energy and the amino groups of the melamine resin. The superhydrophobic isothiocyanate/melamine/formaldehyde (IMF) lignocellulose fibers are extremely repellent to water both in atmospheric conditions and underoil. It can separate various oil–water mixtures by absorption (with a high oil absorption capacity of > 1000 wt%) and gravity-driven filtration (with a separation efficiency of > 96%). The embedded superhydrophobicity in the IMF lignocellulose fibers remained unperturbed (with the water contact angle of > 150° and the oil–water separation efficiency of > 97%) even after repeating for 50 cycles. The presented strategy not only indicates a new direction for the comprehensive utilization of abundant lignocellulose fibers, but also proposes a promising way for the development of oil–water remediation technology.

Rare metals trade: Year-on-year growth in Japanese imports since Apr 2021

Nitrogen (N) has played an important role in the global economy, food security, and environmental sustainability. However, the recent developments in nitrogen science have raised concerns about the negative impacts of the excessive and imbalanced use of N on human health, ecosystem, and environmental sustainability. It is being argued that improving nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and reducing N losses are critical for a country to be food secure and environmentally healthy. Recent advances in nitrogen management suggest that a range of technological solutions and policy instruments are needed to tackle “the nitrogen challenge.” Globally, different policies have started recognizing the nitrogen challenge and suggesting measures for sustainable N use across different sectors. Pakistan is one of the leading nitrogenous fertilizer consuming countries in the world, but its average NUE is far below than the global average. Low NUE has led to a massive concurrent N surplus that is being lost to the environment in one or the other way. Currently, Pakistan lacks institutional and regulatory frameworks to address and control the damaging effects of excessive and imbalanced N use. Yet, there is no direct N management policy available in Pakistan and the indirect N-related policies do not adequately address “the nitrogen challenge.” Given this scenario, the institutional and regulatory setup requires modernization of all practices and procedures involved in N production to consumption encompassing all relevant sectors such as agriculture, livestock, transport, and industry to reduce N waste and emissions and increase NUE. Reducing N waste and increasing NUE will help Pakistan reap benefits for environmental sustainability, food security, and overall economy.

Environmental cost of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest: Controlling biocapacity deficit and renewable wastes for conserving forest resources

The environmental cost of deforestation increases greenhouse gas emissions, which hinders achieving the global environmental sustainability agenda. The greater annual deforestation rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest negatively impacted global climate change, which opened a call for conservation debates of the country's rainforest. The study evaluated some critical economic issues related to deforestation in Brazils' rainforest, covering more than four decades of data. The asymmetry arises in the forest rents and the nation's biocapacity deficit at the forefront of sustainability matters. The results show that positive and negative shocks of forest rents reduce carbon emissions in the short- and long run. On the other hand, the negative shocks of the nation's biocapacity deficit, fossil fuel combustion, and continued economic growth increase carbon emissions in the long run. The initial value of renewable waste increases carbon emissions in the short run; however, it decreases in the long run. The innovation accounting estimates suggest that fossil fuel combustion will exert a more significant change in carbon emissions, followed by the economic growth, forest rents, the nation's biocapacity deficit, and renewable waste for the next ten years' time period. The study concludes that the rate of ecological footprints surpassed the nation's biocapacity indicator, causing an increase in the total carbon emissions level. The policy derives that the country should have to minimize ecological footprints and fossil fuel combustions and raise forest rents that help reduce deforestation of Amazon's rainforest, which eventually absorb GHG emissions to tackle climate change issues.

Graphene-based catalyst for CO2 reduction: The critical role of solvents in materials design

The catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to hydrocarbon fuels offers a tremendous opportunity for a transformational impact on both global energy and environmental sustainability. To enhance the CO2 reduction process, the design and synthesis of novel and efficient catalytic materials with control-over properties are needed. The solvent used in the synthesis of these materials can play a crucial role in tailoring the material properties resulting in changes to their catalytic performance. However, the field still lacks a systematic analysis of the specific effect for different solvents. Here, we report the role of water, ethanol (EtOH), ethylene glycol (EG), Dimethylformamide (DMF), and γ-Butyrolactone (GBL) on the synthesis of reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-copper nanoparticles (CuNP) electrocatalysts used in CO2 reduction reactions (CO2RR). As these solvents contain different terminal groups and molecular sizes, we observed a variation in the d-spacing of the rGO, surface area, nanoparticle yield, and defect density, and characterized the corresponding change in the CO2RR activity. The use of DMF results in higher porosity, d-spacing, yield of CuNP, surface area and defect density which lead to comparatively higher efficiency and selectivity of and selectivity of 19.5 % and 28.4 % for formate and CO, respectively.

Soil Health Assessment and Management: Recent Development in Science and Practices

In the past decade soil health has been intensively studied as a science and practiced as a means to help improve the global social, environmental, and economic sustainability. This paper reviews the recent advances of the scientific soil health system. The current understanding and interpretation of soil health from the perspectives of soil functions, processes, and properties is summarized. Multi-tier soil health indicators were selected from relevant soil physical, chemical, and biological parameters. A suite of soil health assessment methods have been developed, such as soil health card, Solvita soil health tests, Haney soil health test, and comprehensive assessment of soil health. An array of soil health management practices have been recommended, including proper land use, crop rotation, cover crops, conservation tillage, soil organic amendment, crop-range-livestock integration, and rotational grazing. Overall, the recommended soil health indicators and assessment methods need further validation and improvement in relevance, scientific validity, practicality, and local adaptation. Continuous research, education, and outreach efforts are warranted to promote localized development, adoption, and implementation of soil health assessment and management.

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Global Economy and Environment

As a result of the appearance of a new coronavirus infection in the world in 2019 (COVID-19), there was a change in all spheres of people's lives. The measures taken to reduce the spread of the virus have had a negative impact on the economy and a positive impact on the environment. This research is aimed at studying the positive impact of COVID-19 on the environment and studying the global economic recession in connection with the quarantine measures that were accepted. The research used an analytical approach based on the analysis of global statistics and available scientific literature on COVID-19. The main macroeconomic indicators are analyzed, and the state of the atmosphere and hydrosphere during the isolation period is assessed. As a result of the research, the main measures that contribute to the elimination of the economic downturn are identified, as well as the main ways to achieve long-term environmental benefits. Thus, the implementation of the proposed strategies in ecology and economics can be useful for global economic and environmental sustainability.

Plastic Pollution by COVID-19 Pandemic: An Urge for Sustainable Approaches to Protect the Environment

COVID-19 pandemic has created a prolonged impact globally and destructed the life all over the world. The necessary use of personal protective equipments, masks, gloves and other plastic products has to some extent reduced transmission of virus. However, the impact of plastic waste generated worldwide due to the pandemic has affected the environment globally. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has destructed and altered every part of life and environment globally. Potential impacts on the environment are seen due to the transmission of virus as well as a slowdown in economic activities as lockdown prevails. Increased biomedical waste, improper usage and disposal of surgical masks, disinfectants, gloves, and increasing plastics wastes from domestic households continuously endangers environment. Not only it has an impact on environment, but also deteriorates human health in the future. Global environmental sustainability is necessitated to overcome the plastic pollution problem and facilitate strategies to recycle and reuse plastics products. This review highlights the influence of COVID-19 on wastes generated by plastic products along with environmental challenges and repercussions. Also, measures to combat the plastic pollution problem have to be implemented for future protection and safety of the environment.

China's food loss and waste embodies increasing environmental impacts.

Food loss and waste (FLW) hampers global food security, human health and environmental sustainability. However, monitoring and benchmarking FLW reduction is often constrained by the lack of reliable and consistent data, especially for emerging economies. Here we use 6 yr large-scale field surveys and literature data to quantify the FLW of major agrifood products along the entire farm-to-fork chain in China. We show that 27% of food annually produced for human consumption in the country (349 ± 4 Mt) is lost or wasted; 45% of this is associated with postharvest handling and storage and 13% with out-of-home consumption activities. We also show that the land, water, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus footprints associated with total FLW are similar to those of a medium-sized country (such as the United Kingdom's in the case of carbon footprint). These results highlight the importance of better primary data to inform FLW reduction actions and ensure food security and sustainability.

Solid‐State Post Li Metal Ion Batteries: A Sustainable Forthcoming Reality?

AbstractIn the quest for a sustainable society, energy storage technology is destined to play a central role in the future energy landscape. Breakthroughs in materials and methods involving sustainable resources are crucial to protect humankind from the most serious consequences of climate change. Rechargeable batteries of all forms will be required to follow the path. Elements that are eligible to harmonically contribute to the development of a sustainable ecosystem and fulfil the demands of high energy density batteries include Na, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, and Al. Numerous research efforts are underway to explore new battery chemistries based on these elements and, depending on the field of application, different elements inherit different advantages and challenges. Full sustainability implies that the environmental friendliness of these systems must be characterized by a “cradle‐to‐grave” approach. In this context, the pursuit of global environmental and economical sustainability from mass production, raw materials, and technical challenges is discussed herein for the most recent battery concepts based on monovalent and multivalent metal anodes. A perspective on strategies and opportunities particularly around the development of all‐solid‐state system configurations is provided, and the most important obstacles to overcome in search of a more sustainable future for electrochemical energy storage are addressed.

A Comparative Time-Series Investigation of China and U.S. Manufacturing Industries’ Global Supply-Chain-Linked Economic, Mid and End-Point Environmental Impacts

Manufacturing activities of China and the U.S. account for a substantial portion of the global manufacturing output and environmental sustainability impacts. The two countries’ economies account for one third of the global economic output. Their supply chains are critically linked with and serve most of the production and service industries across the globe. Recent global trends in manufacturing necessitate a study that comparatively analyzes the two countries’ manufacturing industries from an economic and environmental perspective. In this paper, U.S. and China manufacturing industries were investigated to analyze the economic and mid and endpoint environmental impacts over a 20-year study period. The literature is abundant with single period and single country focused works, and this study contributes to the state-of-art by extending the temporal dimension to 20 years and spatial focus to the global economy (40 countries and rest of the world). In terms of the methodology, Multi-region input-output (MRIO) models were built using the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) as the primary database, global input-output tables, environmental impact and economic output multipliers, and manufacturing industries’ final demand. Twenty MRIO models, each comprised of 40 major economies and the rest of the world (ROW), were built to cover the global trade linkages, which yielded the global supply chain linked cradle-to-gate life cycle inventory (LCI) of economic outputs and environmental impacts. The environmental LCI was extended to midpoint (Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP)) and endpoint (human health and ecosystem) impact dimensions by ReCipe framework. Lastly, the relative impact of a unit change in Leontief inverse, final demand and Green House Gas (GHG) emission multipliers on the total economic output and environmental impacts were explored with structural decomposition analysis (SDA). Results indicated that both countries’ manufacturing industries experienced positive economic output growth, in which China was more dominant in recent years. Both countries’ manufacturing industries’ midpoint and endpoint impacts were found to be steeply rising despite the negative growth observed in emissions intensities. The amount of GHG emissions and related midpoint (global warming and ozone depletion) and endpoint (damage to ecosystems and human life) impacts seemed to be quickly worsening in China compared to the USA.

Perceptions of primary school students toward learning about science: the case of Spain

ABSTRACT It is vital that the next generation of young people develop scientific skills to ensure global environmental sustainability and the capacity to solve many of the global problems caused by narrow scientific thinking. The aim of this article is to discuss the interest on studying science of primary school students and how to engage them in science education. We explore the perceptions of 709 sixth-grade students from Spain aged between 11 and12 with regard to studying science using a questionnaire entitled Scientific Competencies. Our findings show that there is a growing interest in science motivated by the engagement of primary school students in scientific learning that is transferable to daily life. We discuss how this optimistic result could lead to more students becoming interested in pursuing a career in science. We conclude the article by discussing some of the challenges in relation to maintaining students’ positive attitude towards learning about science.

Protein Data Bank: 50 Years of Macromolecular Structures Enabling Research and Education

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) was established in 1971 as the first open-access digital data resource in biology. Beginning with only seven protein structures, the PDB archive has ballooned to >170,000 structures of proteins, DNA, and RNA (totaling >1 billion atoms). Today, the PDB is universally regarded as a core data science resource of fundamental importance to the wider life-science community and long-term preservation of machine-readable biological data. PDB structures are the molecules of life. Knowledge of 3D structures (shapes) of biomolecules, how they evolve with time, and how they function in nature is essential for understanding critical areas of science. PDB data impacts basic and applied research on health and disease of humans, animals, and plants;production of food and energy;and other research pertaining to global prosperity and environmental sustainability. Structure data are also important to biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, accelerating data-driven discovery of new drugs, materials, and devices. Today, powerful pulsed X-ray facilities, cryogenic electron microscopes, and new integrative/hybrid (I/H) methods for structure determination are accelerating biomedical research with functional insights into ever more complex biological systems at the atomic level. Cryo-electron tomography even allows study of molecular machines ?caught in the act? inside frozen cells. The PDB is managed by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank partnership (wwPDB;wwpdb.org). RCSB PDB (RCSB.org) operates the US wwPDB data center, and makes PDB data available at no charge and without limitations. The 50th anniversary of the PDB archive is being celebrated with special symposia and related resources, including a May 4-5 virtual meeting hosted by the ASBMB. These celebrations will include first hand accounts traversing five decades from the beginnings of structural biology all the way to ongoing efforts aimed at combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assessing energy efficiency in the Asia-Pacific region and the mediating role of environmental pollution: evidence from a super-efficiency model with a weighting preference scheme.

The demand for primary energy resources has increased significantly due to the rapid growth of the global economy and increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, improving energy efficiency levels is essential for global energy, energy security, and environmental sustainability. In the context of the Asia-Pacific region, the study of energy efficiency among different countries can play a role in better energy utilization. These countries also provide a policy for the Asia-Pacific region to improve its energy utilization. This study's primary focus is to investigate the optimal efficiency score of 15 areas of the Asia-Pacific region, and the analysis is based on super-efficiency (radical) and super slacks-based measure (SBM) data in a nonparametric DEA model. Three areas in the Asia-Pacific are selected for energy efficiency measures: South Asia, East Asia, and Australasia. The results suggest that Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Singapore, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam obtain the most efficient score of 1 in both DEA models throughout the study period. Australia and Sri Lanka receive a low score during all study periods, while Hong Kong does not have data for all study years. The results of the study will help improve energy performance, cost-effectiveness, and environmental sustainability, increasing the competitiveness and scalability of efficient energy sources.

Remotely sensed tree canopy cover-based indicators for monitoring global sustainability and environmental initiatives

With the intensifying challenges of global environmental change, sustainability, and biodiversity conservation, the monitoring of the world’s remaining forests has become more important than ever. Today, Earth observation technologies, particularly remote sensing, are at the forefront of forest cover monitoring worldwide. Given the current conceptual understanding of what a forest is, canopy cover threshold values are used to map forest cover from remote sensing imagery and produce categorical data products such as forest/non-forest (F/NF) maps. However, multi-temporal categorical map products have important limitations because they inadequately represent the actual status of forest landscapes and the trajectories of forest cover changes as a result of the thresholding effect. Here, we examined the potential of using remotely sensed tree canopy cover (TCC) datasets, which are continuous data products, to complement F/NF maps for forest cover monitoring. We developed a conceptual analytical framework for forest cover monitoring using both types of data products and applied it to the forests of Southeast Asia. We conclude that TCC datasets and the statistics derived from them can be used to complement the information provided by categorical F/NF maps. TCC-based indicators (i.e. losses, gains, and net changes) can help in monitoring not only deforestation but also forest degradation and forest cover enhancement, all of which are highly relevant to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other global forest cover monitoring-related initiatives. We recommend that future research should focus on the production, application, and evaluation of TCC datasets to advance the current understanding of how accurately these products can capture changes in forest landscapes across space and time.

Global environmental change and planetary health in the curriculum of undergraduate health professionals in Latin America: a review

BackgroundPeople living in Latin America are already affected by global environmental changes and several health inequities, increasing the risk of poor health. Health professionals have a key role in tackling these threats and their consequences by providing direct care and advocating for public health policies. Hence, health professionals should be taught about global environmental changes, climate change, and policy advocacy, which could be included under the planetary health frame. Unfortunately, whether these ideals have been included in the undergraduate curriculum in Latin American universities is unclear. We aimed to analyse the incorporation of courses on climate change, environmental health, and planetary health in the curriculum of undergraduate health professionals in Latin America. MethodsIn this review, we did a documentary analysis of the curriculum of undergraduate health professional programmes that had been published on each university website. We selected the ten best Latin American universities for each country according to the QS Latin American University 2020, Times Higher Education World University 2020, and Academic Ranking of World Universities 2019 rankings. Between April 6 and May 5, 2020, we reviewed the curriculum of the nursing, medicine, nutrition, and psychology courses at these universities, looking for the phrases “climate change”, “environmental health”, and “planetary health” in the names of the courses offered. FindingsWe included 161 universities and reviewed 392 courses. We identified 276 (70%) courses that incorporated public health or epidemiology, or both; however, only 118 (30%) courses covered environmental health, and only two (1%) courses were on climate change. None of the universities included in our review offered a planetary health course. InterpretationOur findings imply that new Latin American health professionals are receiving insufficient training on environmental matters, which comprise roughly 25% of the global burden of disease. As we enter the Anthropocene epoch and rapid global environmental changes, health professionals need to be aware of the challenges and actively involved in the responses to protect the population and the environment. The planetary health approach facilitates this awareness and preparation. Planetary health education includes concepts regarding the holistic association between global environmental changes, natural systems, human health, and sustainability, among others, encompassing a broader perspective than just environmental health FundingNone.