After a summer of record heat on one U.S. coast and record cold on the other, epic floods, an oil disaster, tropical storms, and earthquakes, many businesses are wondering how best to plan for all the major disruptions that climate change will undoubtedly bring.
In an article published by Reuters in August and written by the organization, BSR (Business for Social Responsibility)—a global network of companies focused on sustainability—several solutions to planning for unpredictability are explored. The article’s author states that humanitarian crises, economic disruptions, and weather-related disasters during the last century have cost more than one trillion dollars and resulted in the death of more than 800,000 people.
But trying to predict the future by looking at past events does not accurately help forecast specific climate events and their outcome. Rather than relying on predictions, the article’s author believes that the key to best managing the effects of future climate change is preparedness.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) outlined this approach in its Climate Change 2007 executive summary. Some of the key points in the summary were:
- Climate-change related vulnerabilities in industry and society are closely related to extreme weather events not gradual climate change, and climate change alone is not the main factor in considering sustainability.
- Vulnerability related to climate change is worse in high-risk locations such as coastal areas, and regions where the economy is closely linked to climate-sensitive resources including agriculture, forest products, water, and tourism.
- Poor communities are especially vulnerable.
The BSR article focuses specifically on four specific themes: developing literacy, indentifying impacts, evaluating priorities, and building resilience. For businesses, developing literacy means coming to an understanding of how climate change will most like affect the organization and how to cope with uncertainty. The negative impacts on health, food, water, ecosystems, and coastal regions should be looked at as risks and also opportunities, as there is the chance to develop new solutions.
With regard to identifying impacts, the worst impact is like to come from extreme weather, particularly in areas prone to flooding. This will affect business operations that depend on capital assets such as energy, fixed resources such as mining, extended supply chains including retail and distribution, and climate-sensitive resources such as agricultural and forest products, tourism, and water demands.
Once these impacts have been identified, they can be utilized to determine relative areas of concern. This assessment will help organizations evaluate priorities to develop the likely climate change hazards that will have the most financial and human effects on the business.
Finally, the BSR article states that building resistance will involve two steps. First making “if-then” decisions, such as if a major drought happens near a water-intensive plant, then what the company do? The solution should include traditional disaster planning and contingencies for sudden changes in needs or critical supplies.
And second, companies should take proactive steps so that new buildings, plants, and infrastructures are built to withstand extreme events, and at the same time, pulling back on development in high-risk areas and preserving wetlands, forests and other natural resources that can provide nature protection against weather-related disasters.
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