From Heat Relief to System Building: How Chinese Companies are Tackling High-Temperature Production

As the summer heat intensifies, with ground temperatures in Xi’an soaring past 50°C, a fleet of vans loaded with bottled water, traditional Chinese medicine, and sun protection sleeves arrives promptly at the Haier Smart Home after-sales service center. Almost simultaneously, 2,400 kilometers away in Guangzhou’s Tianhe district, JD Logistics delivery riders are receiving cooling sleeves and electrolyte drinks at rest stops. And in Shanghai’s Pudong, Meituan drones are delivering ice packs to operations and maintenance engineers at Zhangjiang Artificial Intelligence Island.

These seemingly disparate scenes are coalescing into a significant trend among Chinese businesses this summer: integrating “extreme heat” as a standard variable in occupational health and safety management.

The World Meteorological Organization’s May report on the global climate status suggests that 2025 is likely to break heat records. As extreme weather transitions from a ‘black swan’ event to a ‘new normal’, mitigating the ‘heat cost’ for frontline employees is evolving beyond simple summer perks. It’s becoming a systematic undertaking that directly impacts supply chain resilience and operational efficiency.

Delivering Relief from the Heat

Across factories nationwide, the relentless heat poses substantial challenges to production lines, demanding proactive countermeasures to maintain productivity and workforce well-being.

As a common physical hazard in the workplace, heat accumulation raises core body temperatures, potentially leading to heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and other heat-related illnesses. Neglecting heat stress can result in decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, and potentially severe health risks for employees.

In response, Chinese enterprises are actively implementing measures to protect the health and rights of their frontline workers, acknowledging the economic imperative of investing in their workforce’s well-being.

For example, according to its 2024 ESG report, Zhao Xin Co., Ltd. is providing high-temperature subsidies to employees working in hot environments from June to October, while continuously improving employees’ working conditions.

At Haier Smart Home factories in Zhengzhou (air conditioners), Chongqing (washing machines), Hefei (washing machines), Wuhan (water heaters), and Shanghai (washing machines), comprehensive “cooling initiatives” are underway. Factory personnel deliver chilled mung bean soup, plum juice, popsicles, and bottled water to workers on the production line during dedicated times throughout the day.

To ensure health and safety, Haier Smart Home has proactively stocked traditional heatstroke remedies and established “caring health consultation stations” to monitor employees’ blood pressure and blood sugar levels, building a solid health defense line. “During hot weather, it is more important to balance work and health,” stated a Haier Smart Home union representative during a summer outreach event.

Beyond factory-based measures, Haier Smart Home extends detailed care to its customer service personnel, especially those installing air conditioners, who face high heat exposure.

In cities like Xi’an, Lanzhou, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, recognizing the high risk of heatstroke for installers working outdoors for extended periods, Haier Smart Home provides them with ample heatstroke prevention medication, sun protection products, and chilled drinking water before they begin their daily routes. This proactive approach ensures installers are well-equipped to handle the challenging conditions.

Furthermore, the company’s dispatch system considers the daily weather conditions when scheduling work, avoiding the hottest hours whenever possible. Even for urgent installation requests, comprehensive heat prevention measures are implemented in advance to guarantee installers can provide high-quality service safely.

From Handouts to Institutionalized Support

As extreme weather becomes the norm, businesses are actively exploring and implementing systematic employee safety protocols. The focus is shifting from ad-hoc responses to integrated, long-term support systems.

In August 2023, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security published the “Workplace High Temperature and Cold Weather Labor Rights Protection System (Reference Text),” which outlines the labor rights employers are expected to protect. This covers various dimensions, including workplace conditions, protective measures, working hours, subsidy payments, and management oversight.

Through collaborative efforts between regulators and industry stakeholders, comprehensive high-temperature response systems that encompass both production frontline and management teams are steadily improving.

The Haier Hefei Washing Machine Union, for example, has logistics support in place to provide various cooling drinks and medicines and a mechanism to ensure that each equipment department fully inspects, maintains and repairs the ventilation and cooling equipment in the workshop to ensure its efficient and stable operation. In addition, management personnel are required to visit the production line from time to time to observe and study the condition and needs of employees so that they may feedback and deal with problems caused by the workplace environment in a timely manner.

Beyond the factory setting, companies are developing diverse and flexible cooling initiatives for field workers who face high heat levels in more irregular environments.

JD.com has initiated the “City Ice Island Project” in core commercial areas of eight major cities, including Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Wuhan. The program provides cooling stations equipped with air conditioning, free cold drinks, mobile phone charging equipment, and heatstroke prevention materials like cooling sleeves and patches. Some stations also offer sun protection packages, allowing outdoor workers to take short breaks and reduce heat stress during their demanding schedules.

These more complete and comprehensive high-temperature work protection systems both provides care to workers, while also a new understanding of corporations social resposibility and production resilience. It can be seen as a vivid way to solidify the corporations and the industries long-term development.