College Advisory Forum on the Environment
RCPE's Mission
Our mission is to promote and improve the quality of health and patient care worldwide. We will do this by improving accessibility to the profession, developing collaborative partnerships, encouraging innovation and delivering outstanding education, training, quality improvement, and assessment opportunities.
Learn more about the College's purpose.
About the Committee
This Forum is comprised of Members and Fellows of the College, and College staff. The Forum meets at least four times a year with the aim of further supporting RCPE’s strategy and aims with particular projects and activities relating to climate change, including air pollution.
Learn more about the members of the CAFE group.
Ten Things a Doctor can do to Combat Climate Change
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Practise preventive medicine
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Prescribe carefully
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Reduce the investigations you request
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Use telephone consultations and low carbon meetings
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Reduce use of personal protective equipment
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Switch it off
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Walk, cycle, or use public transport
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Bring your own food and drink (locally produced) in reusable containers
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Learn, and audit your practice
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Join discussions in your board or trust about the big things.
Visit RCPE's Education Portal where you will find Open Access (free to anyone) e-learning from CAFE on 10 things a doctor can do to combat climate change.
Air Pollution Working Group
Update from Prof Jill Belch (as part of the 2025 Winter Report)
The RCPE Short term Working Group on Air Pollution has continued to raise awareness about the harms of poor air quality. We have provided scientific evidence to the Scottish Government on the dangers of burning wood in the home, on the absence of air quality monitors round our city schools, and been invited to comment by Holyrood on their new air quality plans, and to provide scientific evidence on health and global warming in Scotland, that will inform their new Climate Change plans.
Two of our Fellows now sit on the Scottish Government Air Quality Advisory Committee, and on the CAF2 public engagement sub-committee. We have formed strong liaisons with other groups concerned about air quality such as Global Action Plan (Clean Air Day), the teachers union, NASUWT, and shared a Holyrood platform with Asthma + lung, Scotland, with a second Holyrood meeting with Environmental Rights Centre, Scotland.
We provide lectures on the subject, with a reach across the Atlantic to New Jersey-wide meetings via Cooper University and plan to link with Fellows in India for an air quality seminar. We have reached out to schools, and will be providing one of our new air quality monitors to an Edinburgh school for a citizen science project, for which RCPE will provide mentoring. The remaining monitors will be used at the start of the year to monitor air quality inside school buses, with the aim of providing the Scottish Government with supporting (or otherwise) evidence for Electric school buses in the future.
Visit our news page for latest articles on our support for tackling air pollution.
Learn More
For more information about the group, contact Dani Cleeland.
You can also read our 2025 Winter Report to stay up to date on latest developments from the CAFE group.
