Are you prepared for climate change?

Are you prepared for climate change?

Businesses are struggling to develop the resilience they need to cope with climate change.

Dr Martina Linnenluecke and Professor Andrew Griffiths of UQ Business School have spent 10 years working with businesses to develop climate change strategies and have some advice for you.

‘Climate change is upon us but the business community has not yet fully considered the implications,’ Dr Linnenluecke said.

Storms, floods and other climate events are likely to be more damaging for businesses than higher temperatures and few areas would escape the effects. But there has been little discussion on how to cope with the physical impact of climate change.

Even if you sustain no direct damage, you’re likely to be affected by power cuts and damage to infrastructure. Because of how much we rely on technology, outages can result in large-scale disruption.

Dr Linnenluecke and Professor Griffiths suggest two options: trying to prevent further climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to change.

‘Businesses need to do both,’ Dr Linnenluecke said. ‘We will have to learn to adapt to gradual changes and also build the resilience required to be able to recover quickly from extreme weather incidents.’

You should also consider how you can take advantage of any opportunities associated with climate change.

The key difficulty lies in determining the likely effects on your business and how best to respond.

You need to think in terms of recovery and risk, as well as resilience, in order to prepare yourself.