Are occupational hazard controls the solution to climate change?

This article is written by Lyndsay Gavin, behavioural researcher for the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, US

The first time I was introduced to the concept of a hierarchy of controls was during a routine morning safety meeting at an oil refinery in Alabama, where I was working as an engineer.

Workers at another of the company’s field offices were likely getting a harsher talking-to that morning. Apparently, one of their team had just the day before been critically injured after checking the inside of a (seemingly) empty oil tank using the glow from his lighter.

“You can’t fix stupid”, was the refrain going around the group I was shadowing. The foreman leading the meeting quickly chided them, saying: “With the right controls in place, the hazard wouldn’t have been there.”

Unpacking the hierarchy of controls

The National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), part of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), introduced the hierarchy of controls as a model for designating strategies to control hazards in the workplace. In order of priority of protectiveness, these controls are: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment (a concept familiar to us now as PPE).

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I wonder whether it’s time we started viewing climate change through a similar lens — a hazard we may never eliminate, but which we can mitigate if we put the right controls in place. Working as an engineer before transitioning to public health and then to applied behavioural research broadened my idea of what kinds of actions can have an impact, from large-scale policies to changes in individual behaviour.

There may be readers of this article who’ll doubt the extent to which a threat as all-encompassing as climate change can ever be controlled through procedural safety measures. But beyond industry, this framework is in fact applicable to almost any hazard, including arguably the most important one we face this century.

The scale of impact may vary, but all of these controls play a key role in the future of environmental and human sustainability.

For now though, let’s take a more pedestrian scenario. One of the many hazards that come with introducing a toddler to a house is the potential for the infant to suffer an electric shock. Using the hierarchy of controls, we would first hope to physically remove such a hazard (elimination), or replace it with something that is less hazardous (substitution). Elimination in this case would mean cutting the home’s supply of electricity. Substitution might mean running everything in the home using battery power. While technically effective at eliminating the hazard, these measures are impractical.

The next option is to isolate or create a physical barrier between the infant and the hazard (engineering controls). In this case, allowing the toddler to explore the house within the confines of a play pen or by moving electrical outlets out of their reach could create a form of isolation. The final method for controlling hazards is changing the way people work (administrative controls) and providing people with equipment to protect them from the hazard (PPE). In our example of a toddler in a house, these controls may include teaching the toddler about the dangers of touching or sticking objects into electrical sockets, or using outlet plastic covers, strapping down any cords that run along floors, and so on.How does this help solve climate change?

Elimination and substitution in this context will obviously involve large-scale changes to resource use, as well as political and public will, and technological innovation. We could start by eliminating the use of toxic chemical refrigerants and building materials, such as cement, and substituting energy sources (transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables). The use of engineering controls would effectively mean isolating people from actions that contribute to climate change. This could be achieved by, for example, adopting sustainable land use practices (those that emphasise density and mixed-use in urban environments), designing green, walkable cities, and automating energy and water-use systems in buildings and in agricultural applications.

Finally, changes to individual behaviour, such as abstinence from eating excessive quantities of meat, increased teleworking, recycling, and composting can all be thought of as administrative controls or as the PPE countering climate change.

If you were hoping for a fully fleshed-out climate change control manual, I’m afraid that will have to wait. This is just the start of thinking about how a very real and uniquely menacing hazard can be lessened, mitigated, and adapted to going forward.

The scale of impact may vary, but all of these controls play a key role in the future of environmental and human sustainability. It is too late to completely eliminate climate change, but with the right controls, we might just “fix stupid” one environmental hazard at a time. — Lyndsay Gavin

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