Is your organisation ready for the next heatwave?
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Protect your people. Safeguard productivity. Build resilience in a warming world.
As climate change accelerates, more frequent and intense heatwaves are becoming the norm. To protect employees and maintain productivity, organisations need to ensure they have a heat action plan in place.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (1) shows just how pressing this is. It found that the planet recorded its three hottest days in July 2024 – breaking the record set one year earlier. With records likely to be broken again and again, the time to act is now.
Extreme heat – the rising risks
Extreme heat is a growing global concern, but heat already causes staggering health risks. Swiss Re’s SONAR 2025 report (2) identifies heat as one of its eight emerging risks. The report points to research (3) showing that up to half a million people die each year because of extreme heat - more than the annual deaths resulting from floods, earthquakes and hurricanes combined.
Known as the ‘silent killer’, these figures are widely under-recognised. Heat can affect the body directly, causing heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which can be fatal. However, many of the deaths are due to the amplifying effect of heat on other health conditions such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and mental health, and its true impact is not known until sometime after a heatwave, when epidemiological analyses can take place.
It’s a major issue for employers too – even if many don’t yet recognise the risks. The International Labour Organization (4) estimates that more than 2.4 billion workers – equivalent to 70.9% of the global workforce – will be exposed to excessive heat at some point.
As well as the health risks, heat can also affect productivity. According to the Global Heat Health Information Network (5), productivity starts to slump in temperatures as low as 24-26°C. Once the thermometer hits 33-34°C, you can expect to lose 50% of work capacity.
Extreme heat can mean higher insurance costs too. In its SONAR report, Swiss Re states that heat-related health impacts can increase claims on medical and life insurance while liability claims can also spike, as the probability of accidents increases when workers struggle with heat stress.
Business operations are also at risk. Machinery may malfunction in higher temperatures and the broader infrastructure, whether that’s the energy supply or the road network, can also come under pressure.

Putting your heat action plan in place
Every organisation needs a heat action plan. Don’t let the complexities put you off. Yes, there are nuances around heat risk such as who is most vulnerable and how best to intervene, but there is a balance to be struck here: understand how heat affects your employees and business, then start simply, with some routine measures and awareness-raising, and work up to more comprehensive heat action plan with protective measures triggered when a heatwave is imminent.
- https://climate.copernicus.eu/new-record-daily-global-average-temperature-reached-july-2024
- https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sonar/sonar2025.html
- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext Global, regional, and national burden of mortality associated with non-optimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study, Zhao et al
- https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/climate-change-creates-%E2%80%98cocktail%E2%80%99-serious-health-hazards-70-cent-world%E2%80%99s
- https://ghhin.org/at-work/