Resilient Business, Resilient World: A Framework for Private-Sector Leadership on Climate Adaptation

Authors

• Edward Cameron

  Former Managing Director, BSR

• Samantha Harris

  Former Associate Director, BSR

• Emilie Prattico

  Former Manager, BSR

Climate change represents a material risk to the private sector with profound implications across companies’ operations, in their supply chains, and in the vulnerable communities in which they operate. For the past three years, the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risk Report has ranked climate risk high-priority in terms of both likelihood and impact. From extreme weather events, like hurricanes, flooding, and drought, to longer-term events like sea-level rise, the private sector faces a host of physical climate-related events that create risk on various aspects of the value chain. And yet, companies have the capacity to be powerful agents of climate resilience across society—if properly equipped with a comprehensive diagnosis of climate risk and tailored strategies for enhancing adaptive capacity to the effects of climate change.

This report assesses and consolidates the best available knowledge from natural and social science in the field of climate risk and resilience to present an accessible and actionable framework for private-sector leadership on climate change resilience inside individual companies, across complex global supply chains, and within frontline communities vulnerable to climate impacts.