The World Health Organisation estimates that four times more people will die as a result of asbestos exposure than climate change between 2030 and 2050 – around 1 million deaths. This illustrates the scale of the challenge which requires education. Even if all Europe’s asbestos was removed by 2030, it would be a century before the last person died as a result of avoidable asbestos exposure. 

Asbestos needs to be considered a problem we are bequeathing to future generations. Like climate change, it requires people from school age upwards to be aware of the persistent risk in the environment, the potential for exposure in occupational contexts and the integration of asbestos literacy into trades and occupations most at risk. 

Beyond this, we need to understand not just the measurement of microscopic risk to devising macro-level solutions for the systematic and safe removal of masses of asbestos. This requires a comprehensive framework of competence and skills commensurate with the challenge. The presentation will outline the benchmarks we need to achieve across Europe for this challenge to be met.