Work and health-environment: what are the challenges to address in the face of climate change?

The question of work in the ecological transition is crucial. Employment, combatting unemployment, the desire for 
free time, and the financing of periods of life outside of work are all themes that, for the past forty years or so, 
have pushed work into the background, even though it is one of the conditions of human life that is now being 
disrupted by climate change. The ESEC has taken up the work on health issues against a backdrop of accelerating 
climate change and ecosystem degradation. To that end, it is responding to current concerns in the world of work 
and warns of the future worsening of certain occupational risk factors, in particular rising temperatures.

The concepts of health-environment and exposome are at the heart of this work. The growing significance 
of environmental risks calls for a comprehensive and preventive approach in the design and implementation 
of health policies. Today, preventive healthcare cannot be separated from environmental concerns and the overlap 
of factors calls for decompartmentalization between occupational health and public health.

Climate change is reflected not only in an increase in physical risks at work (occupational accidents and 
diseases) but also in the emergence of psychosocial risks, eco-anxiety risks and ethical conflicts experienced by 
many workers. The meaning of work and commitment to work can be affected. For this reason, actors in the 
world of work must act both to adapt work to global warming and to mitigate the impact of human activities 
on the climate.