Business resilience survey: the results are in

Climate East Midlands, with our counterparts Sustainability West Midlands, have completed a survey of SMEs across the Midlands. The survey is part of an Environment Agency-funded project to build business resilience to climate change.

The survey aimed to establish: how businesses have been impacted by extreme weather events, whether businesses have considered the potential impacts of extreme weather events, what action businesses have taken to adapt to extreme weather events, and what additional support businesses need to help them to adapt. 

Headline findings from the East Midlands part of the survey: 

56% of respondents indicated that their business had been affected by an extreme weather event in the past 5 years.

33% of respondents indicated that their business had incurred additional costs as a result of these impacts, with loss figures of up to £80,000 being quoted.

28% of respondents indicated that their business had benefitted from climate impacts and extreme weather. A number of these businesses had seen an increase in the demand for their products and services and others indicated that they had developed new services.

The survey showed that while about 90% of respondents had considered the potential impacts of extreme weather, only around two thirds had taken any action to make themselves more resilient.

Of the two thirds of organisations who indicated that they had taken some form of adaptive action, the actions they had taken included operational changes (to do with checking or changing insurance and reviewing health and safety procedures), installation of measures to protect property from flooding, and the adoption of new technology or machinery.

Respondents indicated that the main reasons for a lack of action to make themselves more resilient were that climate change and severe weather were not seen as a priority compared with other business issues, and taking action was not seen as being cost effective.

Next steps for Climate East Midlands, informed by the survey findings, will include continuing to raise awareness amongst businesses of the threats and opportunities presented by climate change. Developing the business case for building resilience to climate change will also be crucial.

Download the reports of the survey findings here.

For more information about the project click here, or contact [email protected]