Reframing Sustainable and Planetary Health Through the Fundamentals of Care: A Conceptual Nursing Perspective.

Abstract

This discursive conceptual paper reframes sustainable and planetary health through a nursing-centred lens by applying the Fundamentals of Care framework to contemporary challenges including population ageing, multimorbidity, climate disruption, digital fragmentation and widening social inequities. It argues that the Fundamentals of Care provide an integrative framework capable of connecting the physical, psychosocial and relational dimensions of care with broader agendas of sustainable and planetary health. By positioning nursing practice at the interface where macro-level societal pressures are translated into lived experience, the framework illuminates how health literacy, digital literacy, Healthy Cities and self-care in ageing can be understood as relationally and environmentally constituted capabilities rather than as individual responsibilities alone. From this perspective, health and digital literacy emerge as strategic public capabilities that strengthen resilience to misinformation, polarisation and civic disengagement, while Healthy Cities illustrate how environmental design and governance can promote well-being and equity at scale. Attention to political, commercial and digital determinants further highlights the need for relational infrastructures that foster trust, participation and inclusion. The paper concludes that the Fundamentals of Care positions nursing practice as a relational infrastructure that links individuals, communities and systems, translating sustainability agendas into lived experience and enabling sustainable and planetary health to advance in ways that connect policy ambitions with equity and long-term societal resilience.