Predictions for 2025 and beyond
Crystal ball-gazing
The start of a new year is always time to put setbacks behind us and look forward with optimism to a brighter year ahead.
What does the European Union predict for international health & safety this year and beyond?
Rise of the Circular Economy
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation (committed to tackling the worldās most urgent problems by transforming business practice) describes the circular economy as:
āā¦..a system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting.
The circular economy tackles climate change and other global challenges, like biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, by decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resourcesā.
Circular Economy impact on OSH
In November 2024, the French National Research and Safety Institute for the Prevention of Occupational Accidents and Diseases (INRS) published its almanack on EU-OSHAās Foresight Project on the Circular Economy and its impact on OSH (Occupational Safety & Health).
The Foresight Project cautions about:
- Safety of shared, reused, repaired, or recycled equipment and tools, for both independent contractors and employees
- e-Waste and recycling hazards, e.g. in the case of e-vehicle batteries
- Maintenance risks, especially when applying new technologies or reusing devices and equipment, in -house maintenance
- Need for continuous reskilling
- Over reliance on robots may lead to deskilling (in particular, less experience in critical situations), less task variation and more sedentary tasks
- Workers could be confronted with new biological agents where they least expect them
- New technologies (from biotechnology to nanomaterials) can present new risks
- Recycling of nanomaterials (e.g. paints)
- Repeated recycling
- Digitalisation can support OSH, but also create new/unknown risks
My own predictions
Here are my predictions for 2025:
- Artificial Intelligence systems will increasingly assist in predictive analytics, helping to foresee potential hazards and prevent accidents before they occur.
- The Internet of Things (IoT) devices (smartphones, wearable devices, accelerometers, connected cars, activity trackers, etc) will be used increasingly to monitor environmental conditions and equipment performance, enabling swift responses to anomalies.
- Robots will play a growing role in performing high-risk tasks, reducing the exposure of human workers to dangerous environments.
- Extreme weather events and increased temperatures will change the working conditions of farmers, emergency staff, construction workers, and many others.
- New energy sources will replace fossil fuels, requiring the construction of new infrastructure and demolition of old.
- More workers will report issues with their mental health.
- The number of āgig workersā on zero-hours contracts will continue to increase, increasing the debate about who is responsible for their working conditions.
- Employers will try to reduce the number of hours worked at home.
- The United Nations "Second World Summit for Social Development" in Qatar, November 2025, will reinvigorate its commitment to emphasis on āleaving no one behindā when it comes to social protections, universal health coverage and education, and decent work (originated in the first World Summit in Copenhagen, 1995).
And of courseā¦
The usual sorry litany of natural disasters, fires, explosions, toxic releases, transport crashes, wars, famine, etc. will eclipse the far more myriad numbers of workplace accidents and ill-health causes.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy ā and safe ā New Year!
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