Earth Today | Heat and cents

MAKING THE effort to address heat stress on workers will not only protect the workforce, but also the bottomline, with savings projected at more than US$300 billion globally.

So says the recent International Labour Organization (ILO) report titled Heat at Work: Implications for Safety and Health – A Global Review of the Science, Policy and Practice.

According to the report, putting in place occupational safety and health measures to prevent occupational injuries related to excessive heat could save more than US$361 billion globally.

“Global gross domestic product (GDP) is generated by the global workforce. If a worker dies or experiences temporary or permanent incapacity for work due to exposure to excessive heat, the potential contribution of that worker to the GDP is lost. Additionally, treating injured workers incurs costs. Combined, these factors account for a loss of over US$361 billion globally,” the report explained.

“However, at the regional and country levels, this ranges in terms of GDP from 0.004 per cent in Europe and Central Asia to 0.1 per cent in Africa, with some countries experiencing national GDP losses exceeding 1.5 per cent. Notably, the largest national cost burden is observed in low- and lower-middle-income economies,” the ILO publication added.

This is together with the data that shows – from the review of the policy and practice environment across several countries globally – that Europe and the Central Asia region had the greatest increase in excessive heat exposure, with a 17.3 per cent increase from 2000 to 2020 – almost double the global average increase (8.8 per cent from 2000 to 2020).

At the same time, the Africa and Americas regions had the greatest proportion of occupational injuries attributable to excessive heat, at 7.2 per cent and 6.7 per cent of all occupational injuries, respectively.

Further, nine out of 10 workers were found to have been exposed to excessive heat outside of the time of a heatwave, and eight of 10 occupational injuries linked to excessive heat occurred outside of the time of heatwaves.

“This indicates the importance of preventative safety and health measures for workers during hot periods and not only during heatwaves (when crisis response plans are usually activated),” the report noted.

In addition to giving attention to the issue even outside of heatwaves, the report therefore suggested that heat action plans and public health campaigns also address occupational safety and health protection, while occupational safety and health management systems should include both heat stress prevention and control measures.

In addition, it has urged attention for “targeted empirical research” that can help to “improve knowledge and fill policy gaps”.

“At the national level, more evidence is needed on the effectiveness of specific interventions by sector and occupation, taking into account geographical specificities. The roll- out and implementation of new national policies should be systematically monitored and periodically re-evaluated to ensure that they reflect the latest research findings and address emerging risks and heat stress trends,” the 2024 report said.

“In regard to data collection, heat-related illnesses arising from excessive heat are significantly under-reported. It is crucial to standardise recording and notification systems, in order to develop comprehensive databases that integrate heat stress data and occupational health information,” it added.

Further, the report said that the design and evaluation of novel technologies at the level of the workplace would also be helpful, “especially when it comes to artificial intelligence-assisted interventions, alert systems and effective cooling techniques”.

There is, too, it said, a place for enhanced partnerships, with experts better able to collaborate for “harmonised and evidence-informed heat assessment and intervention models and protocols”.

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