Europe’s employers face a new challenge—keeping workers safe during heatwaves

Crippling droughts in Africa’s Sahel region, flash floods in Southeast Asia, sweeping bushfires in Australia, melting permafrost in Siberia: Once the theoretical preserve of scientific models, the impacts of climate change are suddenly becoming a whole lot more real. Europe, to date, has avoided the worst of it. But that looks set to change. According to a landmark study by Copernicus, the EU space program’s Earth observation service, the European continent is now the fastest-warming region on the planet after the Arctic, with temperatures rising at double the global average since the 1990s.

To compound the problem, citizens across Europe are now facing the pending threat of what Copernicus describes as a “very strong” super El Niño. Generated by the warming of the Pacific Ocean, this periodic phenomenon could see temperatures soar to record levels over coming months, scientists warn.

The implications for public health are severe. Up to 25,000 people are estimated to have died during Europe’s worst-ever heat wave in June, with elderly people and vulnerable populations especially affected.

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The increasing frequency of extreme heat during the summer months also carries significant implications for business. Most obvious is the hit to employee productivity: The higher the thermometer climbs, the more sluggish and prone to mistakes workers naturally become.

Companies’ output is especially hard-hit during heat waves. Not only are sick-leave rates shown to spike during intense hot spells, but health and safety laws in countries such as Italy and Greece oblige workers to actively stop working during peak midday heat.

Temperatures don’t need to hit boiling point for productivity losses to start showing. According to the World Health Organization, worker output is estimated to drop by 2% to 3% for every degree above 20 degrees Celsius.

Hence the warning from Manal Azzi, an occupational health and safety expert at the International Labour Organization, not to treat heat stress “only as a heat wave issue.” According to ILO figures, 90% of exposure to excessive heat happens outside official heat-wave periods.

Productivity losses aside, excessive heat brings a slew of extra costs, from surging energy bills to emergency maintenance expenses as key equipment overheats and transport systems break down.

While perennially hot regions such as Asia, Africa, and the Middle East have developed strategies to mitigate the business impacts, European companies are comparatively underprepared for the hotter temperatures coming their way. The German financial services company Allianz goes as far as to describe extreme heat as a “structural economic risk” to which Europe is “highly exposed.”

A recent stress test carried out by Allianz confirms as much. Tellingly titled Too Hot to Grow, the report predicts that heat-related losses between now and 2030 could........

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