Building Tomorrow's EHS Leadership

In early September, the Verdantix Safety Council held its quarterly roundtable, where EHS leaders discussed their priorities and challenges. This particular meeting highlighted three interconnected challenges reshaping how organizations approach occupational safety: the talent pipeline crisis, the evolution of safety beyond compliance, and the emerging threat of climate-related risks.

The talent challenge
The EHS field is struggling with a significant recruitment problem. Schools and universities aren't producing enough potential employees with EHS expertise, making it impossible to fill junior roles. On the other hand, senior professionals are reluctant to accept positions requiring relocation. This workforce gap demands a fundamental rethinking of how organizations develop and attract talent. To address this, industry leaders emphasize the importance of building strong educational programmes for EHS professionals, incorporating on-field experience and peer learning alongside formal qualifications. Notably, career progression for EHS leaders towards the C-Suite increasingly follows the Chief Sustainability Officer path – rather than Chief Safety Officer trajectories – requiring leaders to broaden their business acumen.

Redefining safety culture
Safety is no longer perceived merely as audits and regulatory compliance. The Council discussion revealed that SIF (serious injury and fatality) prevention requires both cultural and systemic approaches – and culture must come first. Challenges to this include inadequate reporting mechanisms for near-misses, abstract metrics that fail to resonate with frontline workers and data collection methods that don't support meaningful analysis. Emerging solutions involve humanizing data through industry-wide comparisons, leveraging machine learning to identify patterns, and recognizing that diverse cultural groups within organizations demand tailored engagement strategies.

Climate as an EHS issue
Extreme weather now represents a direct operational and safety concern. Heat stress, secondary accidents triggered by extreme conditions, and threats to business continuity require integrated short-, medium- and long-term planning. Historical weather data, unfortunately, provides limited predictive value for emerging patterns, compelling organizations to rethink risk assessment methodologies.

Addressing these interconnected challenges demands a new breed of EHS leader: one that masters technical rigour while thinking strategically across business operations. As the profession evolves, we'll explore these themes further at our next Safety Council meeting on November 25, 2025.