Building Business Resilience
Preparing for a changing climate makes good business sense. Experience in the Midlands has shown that extreme weather events have had devastating impacts on people’s ability to go about their daily activities. Many of the events to date have been flood related and we may see more of these events, or a wider variety of impacts, as our climate changes. Extreme weather has some serious consequences for business operations: not just for premises and staff, but also by disrupting business suppliers and distribution to customers.
Funded by the Environment Agency (Midlands Region), this project involves Climate East Midlands working in partnership with Sustainability West Midlands to identify how to best build business resilience in a changing climate. This project is to help businesses - especially small to medium sized ones - adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change as well as inform internal Environment Agency staff of the key business support providers.
Project detail
The project will support businesses by using existing trusted business networks to deliver key messages and signposting to help. The main focus will on understanding business needs and developing support to help build business resilience to extreme weather.
1. The first stage of the project was a survey designed to help identify business support needs around extreme weather and climate change, and good practice. The survey has now closed and the survey findings are available here.
2. The survey findings will be followed up with the delivery of key messages and good practice via existing business networks and events.
3. Internal Environment Agency workshops will be held for business-facing staff, to help with their role of sign-posting to help and guidance.
4. Through feedback received via the survey, in-depth workshops for businesses will be developed.
If you would like more information about this project, please contact alex.hopkinson@emcouncils.gov.uk
Useful links
Further information to help businesses become more resilient is available in our Adaptation Resource. This includes Climate East Midlands' guide for businesses "Weathering the Storm: Saving and making money in a changing climate".
