Climate change affects all areas of life, and the workplace is no exception. Its effects therefore also require decisive action on the part of the occupational safety and health community. Standards that support the energy transition or make work equipment and buildings more sustainable and capable of coping with climatic conditions must be monitored closely by occupational safety and health experts.
Climate change increases the likelihood of hot days; solar UV radiation exposure levels are rising, and extreme weather events such as torrential rain are becoming more frequent. This aggravates outdoor work. Measures to mitigate climate change or deal with its effects are therefore becoming an increasingly important part of prevention activity.
Standards are also relevant to the responses to changing conditions. They result in new products being placed on the market that satisfy a consensus-based safety standard. Revisions of existing standards can, for example, give consideration to changing environmental conditions, or reduce a product’s carbon footprint. Since climate change is a global problem, European and international standards are a particularly important part of the response.
In March 2025, experts from all stakeholder groups in occupational safety and health attended a KAN expert discussion. Together, they identified and grouped climate-related topics that are relevant to occupational safety and health and standardization:
Climate protection and new energies
- Discussions of e-mobility placed particular emphasis on the significance of safe batteries. Expertise in the areas of life cycle, recycling and condition monitoring must be established and expanded, and incorporated into standardization and regulation.
- The participants in the expert discussion identified the safe production and recycling of wind turbine rotor blades as areas relevant to occupational safety and health.
Impacts of climate change
- Personal protective equipment (PPE) is not a new topic per se, but deserves greater prominence owing to climate change. More intense solar radiation requires PPE to exhibit greater UV resistance; stronger perspiration increases the importance of clothing and footwear, for example, being permeable to water vapour. The OSH stakeholders must advocate for existing standards to be adapted to changing environmental conditions. The need for tests of PPE to cover a wider temperature range is an example.
- At the same time, new topics are emerging; cooling vests are an example. Such topics first require a body of scientific knowledge to be established, which can then be incorporated into standards. A further need is for sustainable materials to be used for PPE, or its service life extended. From an occupational safety and health perspective, however, this is justifiable only if safety continues to be assured without compromise.
- In buildings or indoor areas, aspects such as insulation or protection of roofs against hailstorms must be taken into account during planning or renovation, in order to assure the protection of workers. An important example is daytime accommodation on construction sites (mobile facilities available for use by employees, for example during breaks).
- Innovative solutions for protection against UV radiation and heat have been proposed, and must be tested for their suitability for occupational safety and health purposes. These include mobile shade systems, tarpaulins held by drones, and the greening of buildings or mobile walls.
- In the view of the OSH community, scope for improvement exists in standardization, in a test procedure for sunscreen. The procedure currently assumes that a layer be applied to the skin with a thickness that is not normally achieved in practice.
- The heat stress index is a numerical value expressing the thermal stress on human beings caused by a number of influencing factors. Measurement methods used to form the heat stress index are known for indoor areas and are established in standards. In the view of the OSH community, a similar method should be formulated for outdoor work.
- Invasive vectors/mosquitoes or an increase in their incidence gives rise to a need for technical measures, e.g. fans, to protect workers against them.
Sustainability of products, structures and processes
- The principle of the circular economy also poses new challenges for occupational safety and health: repairability, sustainability, quality standards, recyclability of products and the safety of recycling processes. Consideration must always be given to the potential conflict between sustainability and safety. In the view of the OSH community, safety must be given priority.
- Expansion of the purpose of the digital product passport (DPP), whose content may include information on hazardous substances in products, has now been taken up by the European Commission. The Commission plans to make the DPP mandatory in the future for numerous product groups, including machinery. The DPP could also be used to provide important information for occupational safety and health, e.g. on safety measures in recycling processes.
From identification of topics to implementation
Based on the results of the expert discussion, KAN has formulated primary foci and starting points for its work:
- In the future, KAN will be active in a number of bodies concerned with the safety of hydrogen technologies.
- Together with the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, KAN is examining the legal framework for daytime accommodation on construction sites. Important issues include insulation against heat and cold and air conditioning of the mobile accommodation facilities. If necessary, requirements can be formulated jointly with experts, and established in a standard.
- KAN plans to work with experts from the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the DGUV (IFA) and the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) to examine how the development of proposed standards concerning the heat stress index in outdoor areas could be launched.
It is already becoming apparent that the number of standards on these topics will increase. This makes it all the more important for the occupational safety and health community to coordinate with the stakeholders at an early stage and explore areas where action is particularly needed.
Katharina von Rymon Lipinski
vonrymonlipinski@kan.de
