At the recent World Health Summit in Berlini, we observed a noticeable lack of discussion on the role of the natural environment in health. Co-benefits to human health from ecosystem protection, biodiversity, or urban greening were mentioned far less frequently than the impacts of the socioeconomic environment. This suggests that the global health community is not yet fully engaged with the field of planetary health, resulting in divergent priority setting, research effort, solution development, and policy impact.

In this paper we suggest reasons why this may be the case, and propose some potential solutions.