Employers must plan ahead for hotter summers
June 30, 2009
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) recently urged British employers to plan ahead for hotter summers and all the effects these will bring, including higher temperatures in the workplace, as the Government published its latest http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/UK Climate Projections (UKCP) data.
Funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and based projections by the Met Office, UKCP 2009 has been designed to meet the needs of a wide range of people who will want to assess potential impacts of the projected future climate and explore adaptation options to address those impacts.
Commenting on the 2009 data, the TUC’s General Secretary, Brendan Barber, urged employers to act immediately to plan for the many ways in which working life would be altered by climate change.
He said, “Rising temperatures, the risk of floods, disruption to travel plans — all of these changes will impact on the workplace. There is much that employers could be doing now to plan for how changes in the UK's climate could alter the lives of their employees and the way they work."
Mr Barber added that recent TUC research had suggested that employers who are serious about the challenges posed by climate change and consider the welfare of their staff as they adapt will reap benefits with “a more motivated, highly skilled and well-equipped workforce".
In April 2009, the TUC published Changing Work in a Changing Climate which warned that although damage done to the environment by past and present carbon emissions was forcing companies to think about adapting their products and services to a changing climate, few had considered what such a dramatic change in the UK's weather would mean for their staff and the jobs they do.
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