The sustainable development goals provide an important framework for addressing dangerous climate change and achieving wider public health benefits.

OBJECTIVES: To suggest how public health systems and the health sector can utilise the United Nation (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) to address climate change and other threats to future health and deliver immediate public health benefits. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: We examined UN and World Health Organisation guidance on SDGs and other published texts on systems thinking, integration, universality and co-benefits. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The UN SDGs are a set of globally agreed objectives to end poverty, protect all that makes the planet habitable and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The SDGs integrate the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, environmental and social), they apply to high-income countries as well as developing countries and there are mechanisms to hold countries to account. There are three crucial issues for public health. First, a systems approach to future proof health and social justice. Second, an evidence-based approach to aid communication, framing and engagement. And, third, the importance of interventions that deliver health co-benefits (i.e. both immediate and long-term benefits to health, equity and prosperity). The SDGs present public health professionals with an important opportunity to create the right conditions for a better future through the organised efforts of society.