The General Medical Council’s (GMC) updated guidance, Good Medical Practice, is a disappointing missed opportunity to embed sustainability as a core focus of medical practice. This was a key moment for the GMC to set out how doctors should expect to be educated and encouraged to practice to achieve these targets, to set the groundwork for the incoming generation of doctors to be fully informed and able to act sustainably, and for patients to recognise this as part of their doctors’ practice. Competing interests: EM and RS contributed to the GMC Good Medical Practice consultation