Net zero risk register

Risk Title and Description

Operational Climate Change Impact Risk: Employees unable to work due to increased temperatures and extreme weather events

Service: All City Council Departments

Date identified: 6 February 2023

Owner: Executive

Target implementation date: 2030

Potential Causes:

• Outdoor workers suffering from extreme weather and temperature related illnesses, including heat stroke / heat exhaustion / hypothermia / hyperthermia / vector-borne diseases (e.g. Lyme disease, Malaria)
• Working spaces overheating or too cold for employees to work safely
• Effects on property owned & leased by the City Council, e.g. roofs leaking due to inability to cope with heavy rainfall / snowfall load
• Disruptions to travel from extreme weather preventing employees commuting or working safely

Potential Impacts:

• Essential services not being carried out
• Decrease in work productivity
• Detrimental to employee physical and mental health and wellbeing and safety
• Reputational damage & legal employer duty to safeguard employees
• Increase in the cost to run the service affected

Existing Mitigations & Control

What has been done to control the risk?

• Procuring appropriate workwear for outdoor workers
• Adjusting operational work programmes during extreme weather, e.g. during heatwaves, starting earlier in the day before temperatures rise
• Postponing waste collection programmes during red alerts for extreme high winds to ensure safety for residents and workers
• Providing outdoor workers with suncream for use in extreme heat
• Programme to ensure buildings provide adequate protection from increased extreme weather
• Agile and Flexible working for office based employees allows for remote working in adverse weather conditions

Further Mitigations & Controls to be put into place

• Identify and monitor risks through service-specific climate vulnerability and adaptation assessments
• Build resilience to avoid service disruption
• Continue to educate employees on risks to physical and mental health of climate impacts
• Create emergency preparedness plans for all sites and add to corporate risk registers

Risk scores

Risk scores explained.