Climate and health awareness, framing and governance – views from the membership

“In Europe, boards are not yet there on climate-health as an explicit agenda item,” says Ryanne Van Der Eijk, Chapter Zero member, board member and executive leader in the airline industry. “Issues tend to surface through operational and safety channels rather than dedicated climate or ESG discussions.”

She says that the link between extreme weather and health is increasingly, though not yet explicitly, framed as climate-health risk at board level. For airlines, the increasing frequency of extremes has made people’s health a more prominent agenda item, shifting the conversation from purely operational to one that encompasses workforce welfare.

“Productivity and sickness data are the most compelling entry points for boards,” says Van Der Eijk. “Differentiating between short-term and long-term sick leave attributable to climate events would help make the case.”

Similar scenarios are playing out in construction. Jonny Wates, Chapter Zero member and board member, says: “The conversation has moved from safety to health and safety, but the climate dimension is more recent and still emerging. Heatwaves have affected people on building sites directly, with executive colleagues becoming more aware than before; but these events are still not viewed as an overarching integrated climate-health issue.”

Wates adds that, by stealth, climate-health themes are nevertheless entering strategic planning and market opportunity discussions, even if not labelled as such. Productivity and welfare are both relevant lenses through which climate-health risks are being viewed, with industry-specific data labelled by Wates as “valuable”. Nevertheless, climate health risks remain framed largely at the operational level rather than a key element of board oversight.

Claire Hawkings, Chapter Zero Fellow and portfolio non-executive director, agrees: “Climate-related health risk is not typically framed explicitly as a health risk at board level, it tends to enter through operational, ESG or TCFD lenses,” she says. “Some discussions are reactive and anecdotal, others more forward-looking.” However, for Claire there is the expectation that climate-health-related incidents discussed at board level will become more frequent and more severe over time.

She adds: “A distinct and growing thread is workforce mental health and anxiety. Macro issues, including climate change, are contributing to broader anxiety trends. This has reached board level, with a practical response of introducing mental health first-aiders. Physical climate impacts on the business are recognised, but the health framing is seen as a different lens, one that adds another reason to act, rather than being a primary driver."

Entry points on the board agenda

Audit and risk committees are the natural homes for these issues, alongside dedicated climate change and corporate responsibility updates, says Claire. “Sustainability committees also pick up related themes like supplier commitments to climate change and Scope 3 emissions management. The health lens is viewed as a complementary – rather than central – way of reinforcing the case for action as opposed to opening a new workstream.”

What would be most useful to boards, says Claire, is evidence of the frequency and financial impact of climate events. “This would help discussions on the strategic framing of health impacts and enable tangible and monetary consequences to be understood,” she says. “Additionally, supply chain risk is a familiar board issue, so climate-health risk in supply chains may gain better traction if presented as a consideration of supply chain risk, rather than considering health risk a new risk category. Similarly, connecting climate health insight to existing operational, people and performance frameworks is more likely to gain traction than introducing it as a standalone issue.”

Devyani Vaishampayan, Chapter Zero Fellow and portfolio non-executive director, says that, in her experience, climate-health issues are currently distributed across multiple board committees with no single owner. “The integration of these threads into a coherent view of climate-health risk is a difficult and ongoing challenge,” says Vaishampayan. “Risks are either framed as climate-related or health-related.”

She points out the priority should not be more data but translating existing knowledge into changed behaviours and ways of working – then building cross-industry collaboration around a common framework.