Climate change and OH&S

Recorded: Tuesday, 1 November 2022

Timing: 13.00 – 14.30 (UTC)

What’s this webinar about?

The second event on Day One of our chase-the-sun series on key OH&S topics, this webinar focuses on the climate emergency and what it means for worker health and safety right now, and as the temperature rises. We’ll cover why climate change isn’t just an environmental management issue for businesses, how good OH&S management can help in fighting climate change, and how organizations can prepare.

Who should attend the Managing the OH&S Risks Arising from Climate Change webinar?

• All businesses and organizations irrespective of region, size or sector

What will participants gain?

• A stronger understanding of how climate affects worker health and safety, including current and future foreseeable risks
• An understanding of how effective OH&S can help contribute to taking positive climate action
• Ideas on what can be taken to mitigate related OH&S risks
• Insight into proposed new guidelines for organizations
• The chance to ask the experts questions, both in advance and on the day
• A post-event copy of all presentations and a recording of the webinar

This event contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 on ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.

AGENDA

13:00 Introduction of the panel

13:05 The climate crisis and what it means for workers

13:10 Why climate change isn’t just an environmental management issue

13:15 Discussions including:

• OH&S risks arising right now due to climate change
• OH&S risks arising from changes to how we work and where we work
• Foreseeable risks as the temperature rises
• Preparation and tips on taking action
• Proposed new publicly available specification

14:25  How to get involved

Sally is BSI’s Lead Standards Development Manager for business improvement and occupational health and safety management. She is responsible for working with both national and international experts to develop documents that help organizations of all types to improve the way they operate and to better protect the people who work for them.

Sally engages with a broad range of stakeholders to ensure the widest possible views are taken into account when the UK inputs to international standards and frequently holds public meetings to encourage users of the standards to raise issues and propose improvements.

Sally is the manager  of the ISO technical committee responsible for the world’s first international standard on occupational health and safety management, ISO 45001, and is actively involved in the development of ISO 45003 (guidance on psychological health and safety at work) which will also be the first globally agreed standard of its type.

Martin Cottam is an engineering risk management specialist.  He began his career in the nuclear industry, undertaking risk assessment and safety case preparation, before joining Lloyd’s Register, one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology – focused on improving safety and increasing the performance of critical infrastructures world-wide.  There, over almost 31 years, he undertook risk assessment and safety management projects across many major hazard industries, and held a variety of roles, spending the last 6 years as Group Technical Assurance and Quality Director, with overall responsibility for quality management and technical governance across the organisation.

Martin is a member of BSI’s Management Systems Expert Group.  He has contributed to the development of several OHS standards including OHSAS 18001, and to the ISO 55000 series on Asset Management.  He chaired the BSI mirror committee throughout the development of ISO 45001, leading the UK delegation on the ISO 45001 project committee.  He now chairs the ISO technical committee for occupational health and safety management (ISO/TC 283) and is convenor of the ISO task force on the future of ISO management system standards.

John Dora is a Royal Acedemy of Engineering Visiting Professor at the University of Birmingham and a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, and a Fellow of the ICE. He is a recognised international expert on climate change adaptation, standards and sustainable infrastructure asset management. He has over years’ experience in infrastructure, including flood risk management and asset management of railway structures. His career has covered research, construction and maintenance of civil engineering infrastructure and he has become an acknowledged expert in resilience. His early career was focused on maintaining railway infrastructure on British Rail’s Western Region including tracks, bridges and tunnels. Mid-career he was the Environment Agency’s lead flood defence and risk manager for the western half of the Thames catchment. He became responsible for policy and strategy for managing water and weather and climate hazards with Network Rail from 2002 where he became their expert on climate and resilience. Since leaving Network Rail in 2012 he has acted as independent consultant and expert advisor to a number of organisations, including the International Union of Railways, EdF, the energy provider and the World Bank. With the ICE he is a member of the Sustainability Community Advisory Board.

In August 2020 he became the convenor of the team responsible for ISO’s strategy for international climate change adaptation standards and currently engages with various Standards’ committees via BSI, CEN and ISO, including CEN TC250 ‘Structural Eurocodes’.

John was the initiator and technical adviser to the £2.5M joint NR and Rail Safety Standards Board (RSSB) ‘TRaCCA’ programme on climate risks to the GB railway as completed in 2016. In 2012 he co-founded and remains chair of the UK’s Infrastructure Operators’ Adaptation Forum which has over 70 members from across the UK infrastructure sector, including major players like National Grid, Transport Scotland, OFWAT, Heathrow Airport and Yorkshire Water. Secretarial support is provided by the Committee on Climate Change and the Environment Agency.

He won a BSI Standards’ Makers’ Award for creativity for his work leading the development of ISO 14090 Adaptation to climate change in 2019 – the first global standard on this topic - and in 2017 the Institution of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Asset Management Prize for the paper, ‘Towards the future-proofing of UK infrastructure’.  As well as his expertise in infrastructure, resilience and adaptation, John is an accomplished lecturer, designing and delivering courses on sustainability, asset management and resilience at the Universities of Birmingham and Surrey and commercially through Climate Sense Limited and John Dora Consulting.