This year’s World Health and Safety at Work Day – 28 April – shines the spotlight on the impacts of climate change on occupational safety and health.
As climate change impacts intensify workers around the globe may find themselves exposed to increasing hazards including:
- excessive heat
- extreme weather events creating natural disasters
- ultraviolet radiation
- air pollution
- vector-borne diseases
We are all required to confront a pressing challenge and consider how we plan to mitigate the effects of climate change to protect the safety and well-being of our workforce.
At Anglo American we understand the urgency and recognise that the future safeguarding of the health and safety of our employees requires a multifaceted approach that integrates climate resilience into our workplace standards and procedures.
Understanding the risk
Physical Climate Change Principal, Joanna Kuntonen-van’t Riet, “The all-encompassing nature of climate change risk is what makes it challenging – it impacts all of us, both at work and at home. We are currently undertaking Physical Climate Change Risk and Resilience (PCCRR) screening assessments at our managed sites, looking at risks from a now, medium and long term perspective, according to three different climate change scenarios. From this high-level screening (Phase 1) we identify the material risks and then feed into the relevant disciplines, including Group Health, to determine how best we can address them (Phase 2).
A future focused Group Health Strategy
Human health has always been influenced by climate and weather. Changes in climate and climate variability lead to extreme weather conditions and affect the environment that provides humans with clean air, food, water, shelter, and security. The influences of climate on human health poses significant challenges to worker safety and health globally and are varied. The exposure pathways differ over time and according to the location. Some examples raised by sites include the impact of extreme heat on our colleagues’ ability to work outside, and the implications of prolonged heat waves on employee’s ability to sleep. We know that fatigue can be a significant safety risk.
In Brazil, nine states and the Federal District have declared a state of emergency owing to the high incidence of dengue this year. With Minas Gerais and Goias being amongst the most affected states, many of our Brazilian colleagues have fallen ill this year. This dramatic increase in dengue has been linked to climate change and deforestation. Click here for more information on dengue fever.
Our Group Health strategy balances the immediate need to monitor changing operational conditions and, where risks are significant, adjust the way we work, with a long-term strategic view that is future focused and considers emerging risks of our workplace. Dr Robina McCann, Group Head of Health, sees a robust risk assessment as the foundation of this. “It is critical to have thorough risk assessment processes that continuously monitor and analyse changes in the environment that could impact health and safety. We will build on the results of the PCCRR work to provide our operations with the tools to monitor and take full ownership for looking after worker health, supported by a range of targeted health protective interventions and programmes”.
“In the short term we need to keep an eye on the changing operational conditions and where risks are significant, we need to look at adjusting the way we work. We are already closely monitoring the immediate impacts of climate change such as heat stress cases and the change in patterns of vector borne communicable disease such as malaria and dengue,” says Robina.
The World Day for Safety and Health at Work on the 28 April is an annual awareness-raising campaign intended to focus attention on emerging trends in the field of occupational safety and health.