October 17, 2024 / Larry Sloan

Climate Action and Worker Health

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog on my new role as an advisor to the Health Action Alliance (HAA) National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health. Founded to help employers assess threats to human health and business performance posed by climate change, the Commission is led by a prestigious group of experts across the health, business, academic, and policy areas, including former OSHA administrator David Michaels; Senator Bill Frist of Maryland; Susan Potter, president of Mercer U.S. and Canada; and Dr. Judy Monroe, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation.

The Commission's publication "The Increasing Risks to Our People-Powered Economy" was released earlier this summer. Since then, AIHA has helped promote several of the Commission's webinar programs, which include "Addressing the Mental Health Impacts of Our Changing Climate" and "Fortifying Workers Against Unhealthy Air Quality." Free access to these webinars and information on upcoming events can be found on the HAA website.

During the week of September 23, I attended an in-person Commission meeting in New York City, timed to coincide with Climate Week. This meeting afforded us the first opportunity to meet and network with our fellow commissioners in person. I was impressed by the wealth of knowledge represented by some two dozen business leaders who have broad functional expertise and unique perspectives spanning science, medicine, and health policy. The meeting empowered commissioners to actively shape our 2025 agenda across the following key areas.

Driving Change: Defining Leadership in Action

Climate-related health impacts directly affect business performance, with productivity losses costing U.S. businesses $100 billion annually and projected to rise to $500 billion by 2030. Further, in a recent Mercer survey, 60 percent of employers reported that their employees had been impacted by extreme weather, while 40 percent reported business disruptions.

But meeting participants agreed that the U.S. can lead a transformative effort across the public, private, and academic sectors to address climate-related health risks, influencing both domestic and global impacts. We are seeing some signs of progress: an HAA survey of human resources leaders showed a rise in employer awareness of climate-related health risks since the Commission's launch, from 68 percent to 88 percent since the Commission's launch.

The next step is to position climate and workforce health on global stages and leverage upcoming international events like the United Nations Climate Change Conference in November to integrate health into the human capital agenda.

Collaboration and Co-Creation

Our group explored ways to incentivize companies to support workers at risk from climate-related health impacts, such as the New York State Insurance Fund's offer to reduce insurance costs for hospitals that adopt climate resilience measures. Another example from the healthcare sector is the creation of mental health programming to build resilience among employees facing climate anxiety.

There is a need to focus efforts on the lower-income workers who are most vulnerable to climate-related impacts. The group discussed the potential for developing a set of private-sector recommendations, such as heat policy tax incentives, for the new U.S. administration, particularly for companies that employ a large lower-income workforce.

Best Practices

We recognized that addressing climate-related health risks requires industry-specific solutions, given the varying economic factors across sectors. It is also necessary to treat extreme heat as a genuine hazard, as was done with COVID.

Collecting the right data is crucial to identifying effective interventions. The meeting emphasized that an analysis of how different factors, such as chronic exposures, affect health outcomes will be key to developing best practices.

The discussion of best practices gave me an opportunity to showcase AIHA's new Heat Stress App, which illustrates how practical tools for employers and workers can raise awareness about the hazards of working in high-temperature environments. The group's reaction to the app was quite positive, and Former Assistant Secretary Michaels was complimentary of AIHA's leadership in creating a practical, user-friendly tool.

Corporate Sustainability Reporting

Currently, corporate sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting focus predominantly on environmental aspects, often overlooking the health impacts of climate initiatives on workers. But there is an opportunity to include human health metrics in these efforts. I volunteered to connect HAA with the Capitals Coalition, a global organization actively engaged in this space, with which AIHA has been involved.

The discussion emphasized measuring climate impact in terms of lives saved and improvements to employee health, rather than solely by changes in global temperature. Corporate sustainability strategies must reflect the central role of workforce health.

Additionally, the conversation highlighted opportunities to incorporate human health considerations into existing frameworks like the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) instead of creating new models. Other areas of focus include mental health and workforce well-being initiatives, such as the Huntsman Mental Health Institute's Stop Stigma Together campaign, which both HAA and AIHA support.

As a result of these discussions, we agreed to form new working groups in the following areas:

  • insurance incentives for companies supporting workers at risk from climate-related health impacts
  • public policy incentives to encourage companies to protect worker health from climate-risks
  • industry-specific best practices for protecting workers from climate hazards
  • workforce health integration into corporate sustainability reporting

I volunteered to serve on the last two working groups, as their interests intersect well with the work that our association is engaged in.

The HAA Commission is a strong partner for AIHA and aligns with AIHA's Grand Challenge on climate change, which is one of four global problems we identified as top concerns for OEHS professionals. I'm excited by the opportunities ahead to amplify the efforts our profession has undertaken to address the workplace challenges presented by climate change. If you have any recommendations on how the OEHS profession can play an integral role in climate action through the efforts of any of the working groups, please email me directly, and I would be happy to inform HAA.

Larry Sloan

Larry Sloan, CAE, is AIHA's CEO.

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