Library | ESG issues
Occupational Health & Safety
Occupational health & safety (OHS) protects workers’ physical and mental well-being by identifying and mitigating workplace hazards. Ensuring safe working conditions is essential for both employee welfare and business continuity, helping to prevent and respond to workplace accidents, manage operational risks, and safeguard corporate reputation. Strong OHS policies enhance productivity, workforce retention, and long-term business resilience.
Team Altiorem recommends
Refine
39 results
REFINE
SHOW: 16
Too hot to grow: The economic costs of extreme heat
This Allianz Research report examines the economic impact of extreme heat, highlighting a sevenfold increase in heat stress events since the 1980s. It details non-linear productivity losses above 30°C, stagflationary macroeconomic risks, and significant fiscal burdens, proposing a three-pillar adaptation plan to improve labour, infrastructure, and financial resilience.
Cooler laws, safer workers: Evaluating California’s heat standard and injury reduction
This research evaluates California’s 2005 heat illness standard, finding it substantially reduced work-related injuries in high-risk sectors like construction, agriculture, and transportation. Reductions of 15% to 27% were documented, with the most significant impacts occurring during extreme heat and amongst younger workers.
APAC trends: Sustainability’s new center of gravity: How Asia-Pacific is defining the next era of sustainable business
This report analyses how the Asia-Pacific region influences global sustainable business through four trends: rising investment and disclosure standards, the tension between clean energy growth and security, AI expansion alongside resource limitations, and the shift towards proactive health, safety, and environmental regulations across regional markets.
Spillover effects of regulatory inspections: Evidence from OSHA
Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspections significantly reduce injuries at nearby, uninspected workplaces. An inspection reduces injuries at same-ZIP-code establishments by 11 per cent, preventing six times more injuries through spillovers than direct effects. These findings suggest conventional evaluations substantially understate the social returns to regulatory enforcement.
Workforce heat resilience: An actionable framework to close the execution gap
This report provides a framework for businesses to address workforce heat risks. It details a seven-step roadmap to assess climate impacts, design tailored interventions, and scale resilience. With heat-driven productivity losses projected to reach $2.4 trillion by 2030, the document highlights the strategic necessity of protecting workers.
AI systems at work: A changing psychosocial work environment
This International Labour Organization report examines the psychosocial risks of AI systems in workplaces. It identifies how algorithmic management and advanced robotics impact mental health, autonomy, and privacy. The paper advocates for integrated regulatory frameworks across labour law and safety standards to protect workers from emerging digital hazards.
The hidden human cost of content moderation and data labelling
This report examines the hidden human costs of content moderation and data labelling in Colombia, Kenya, and the Philippines. It details systemic physical, psychological, and economic harms caused by lead firm power, informal employment, and intense target pressure, while identifying significant barriers to corporate accountability and worker rights.
AI-driven intrusive surveillance and loss of autonomy at work linked to psychosocial risks for employees
ILO research finds AI-driven workplace surveillance and reduced employee autonomy may heighten psychosocial risks, including stress, privacy concerns and work intensification. The paper highlights gaps in occupational safety frameworks and calls for integrated regulation covering labour rights, data protection and mental wellbeing.
Free to be exploited: The abuse of platform-based food delivery riders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE
Report finds migrant delivery riders in Saudi Arabia and UAE face systemic exploitation via third-party logistics, including coercive employment, wage abuses, unsafe conditions, and restricted mobility. Weak enforcement and outsourcing obscure accountability. Recommends stronger regulation, corporate oversight, and international labour standards.
Thriving workplaces: How employers can improve productivity and change lives
World Economic Forum report examining how employer investment in employee health and well-being improves productivity, retention and economic value. It analyses global workforce health data, identifies demographic disparities in burn-out and holistic health, and proposes measurement frameworks and organisational strategies to build healthier, more productive workplaces.
Production and externalities: How corporate governance shapes social costs
This working paper examines how corporate governance structures influence firms’ production decisions and associated negative externalities. Using a principal–agent model and empirical analysis, the authors show that costly managerial monitoring encourages performance-based pay, which can incentivise practices that increase socially costly production and broader social costs.
Climate and catastrophe insight series
The Climate and Catastrophe Insight is an annual research series that provides a consistent global view of natural disaster activity and climate-related catastrophe trends. It examines impacts on people, assets and economies to support risk assessment, resilience planning and long-term decision-making.
Crushed series
CRUSHED is a longitudinal research series by the Safe in India Foundation assessing worker safety in India’s automotive manufacturing and supplier ecosystem. Drawing on annual field evidence across multiple years, the series tracks workplace conditions, governance practices, and enforcement gaps to support consistent analysis over time.
Safe in India (SII)
Safe in India is a non-profit organisation advancing occupational health and safety in Indian manufacturing. It conducts factory-based research, worker training, and policy advocacy to prevent workplace injuries, strengthen labour rights, and improve supply chain safety. Focus areas include machine safety, data-driven interventions, and collaboration with industry, unions, and policymakers.
Sustainable Finance Roundup December 2025: Nature, Regulation, and the Hardening of Risk
This month’s sustainable finance roundup traces the shift from ambition to enforcement, as climate and nature risks become financial, regulatory and legal realities. It covers Australia’s environmental law reforms, the embedding of climate and nature risk through prudential supervision, disclosure and shareholder pressure, and insurer warnings on the limits of insurability. It also highlights how markets are responding to deforestation and biodiversity risk, and how litigation and regulation are reshaping governance and long-term financial resilience.
Social benchmark 2024 insights report
This benchmark series assesses the world’s most influential companies on their human rights, decent work and ethical conduct practices. It provides a comparative view of corporate social performance, supporting stakeholders to understand progress, identify gaps and inform actions that contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable global economy.