About
Environmental change, including climate change, is most directly felt by people who cannot escape its impacts. This includes exposed workers, whose source of livelihood may put them directly at risk from high heat and extreme weather events.
Too Hot to Work
Climate change is contributing to higher average temperatures, higher humidity, longer heatwaves and disrupted weather, as well as more intense drought, storms, floods and bushfires.
Climate change is fast becoming an urgent public health issue and a major threat to safe and decent working conditions. Millions of workers worldwide, are directly affected, including through an epidemic of work-related ‘heat stress’. In 2019 the ILO stated reports that without action to arrest the problem climate impacts would ‘destroy jobs and livelihoods on an unprecedented scale’.
The Too Hot to Work project at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has been partnering with councils, think tanks and trade unions to advance new research into how to tackle these issues on the ground in workplaces and through policy action.
Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC)
Too Hot To Work is a part of the Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC) at UTS (formally known as the Climate Justice Research Centre).
In a world where rapidly changing climate and ecosystems are driving momentous social, political and economic change, C-SERC researchers contribute to understanding and shaping transformations in the way societies interact with energy, technology and the living environment.
Based in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the Centre unites researchers from the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, political economy, geography, history, cultural studies, science and technology studies, communications and journalism.
This unique combination of critical social science expertise allows us to advance knowledge and define challenging new agendas in climate, society and environment research that contribute to the mission of UTS as a public university of technology to sustain a positive, viable future and ensure a just and equitable society.