Climate change is already underway: heatwaves, floods, storms... According to the World Economic Forum, extreme weather events are amongst the main risks likely to trigger a major climate crisis on a global scale in the short, medium and long term. In this context, building climate resilience is becoming a strategic imperative. To achieve this, organisations have every interest in constructing and deploying adaptation plans. This approach involves identifying and planning the necessary actions to face climate change. It is organised in three key stages, ranging from climate risks assessment to monitoring and management.
The concept of climate resilience
Climate resilience refers to an organisation's capacity to anticipate, adapt and bounce back from climate-related disruptions. Thus, a resilient company will have identified climate risks and implemented the necessary measures to manage them effectively, both in the short and long term.
Stage 1: Assessing climate risks
The very first stage of the climate resilience plan consists of carrying out a cross-diagnosis of the company's exposure and vulnerabilities, as well as the climate hazards likely to impact it. To do this, the company will analyse its operational issues, its history of damages and disruptions encountered, as well as future scientific forecasts.
Firstly, it involves studying physical risks across the entire value chain of the business. This concerns both procurement, infrastructure and equipment, operations, logistics... The company maps all its interactions and flows, and prioritises the level of importance. One activity may function at 50% whilst for another, no degradation of processes could be accepted.
Next, the various climate hazards that may apply to the company are determined. This ranges from landslides if the site is located in a mountainous area or one with steep terrain, to heatwaves which can degrade working conditions. For each hazard, potential impacts on processes are assessed (duration of interruption, loss of turnover, increase in costs...). Ultimately, the idea is to succeed in prioritising all these climate risks.
Stage 2: Defining the action plan
The second stage focuses on building a climate change adaptation plan. This involves identifying the right adaptation strategies and planning these measures, according to their effectiveness, cost and implementation timeframe. These actions can be of a technical nature (developments, equipment...), organisational (procedures, training...) or natural (vegetation, shading...). The adaptation plan includes the list of these actions, the implementation schedule, everyone's roles and responsibilities as well as the available resources.
This phase requires involving all stakeholders of the company. Internally, the senior management, operations, human resources... And externally, customers, suppliers and even local authorities.
Three main categories of actions can be distinguished:
- Short term: these are "quick wins" that are inexpensive, for example, the acquisition of emergency equipment, the implementation of training sessions and protocols...
- Medium term: this refers to structural investments, such as improving alert or cooling systems, logistics diversification...
- Long term: we're talking here about strategic actions, such as adapting activities, relocating certain sites...
Did you know?
Without climate adaptation measures, the financial costs of climate will represent, on average, 3.3% per year of the value of real assets, and this can even reach up to 28% by 2050! This is enough to justify the investments necessary for your long-term climate resilience.
Actions within procurement departments
To guarantee climate resilience and measure suppliers' capacity to continue their activities, even in the event of a problem, the company can start by questioning them: have they identified their main risks? Have they defined an action plan to face the impacts of climate change and the risks of natural disasters? Are they ISO 22301 certified (business continuity management)?
After which, procurement and supply chain strategies must be adapted. "Various tools and best practices exist for procurement departments to limit the harmful impacts of climate change on their supply chains. First, they must consider geographically diversifying their supplier panels as well as their subsidiaries," recalls Romain Nocente, commodities analyst within the SVP group. Climate-specific criteria can also be integrated into tenders, adaptation clauses included in contracts, transport modes diversified, and the supply chain digitalised and made more reliable...
Stage 3: Managing implementation
Lastly, the climate resilience plan must be managed, updated and integrated at the heart of the company. This involves appointing a reference person and implementing the right monitoring indicators: climate incidents, progress in climate action deployment, impacts of actions... This enables measuring the effectiveness of actions to ensure that risks are reduced to an acceptable level and whether the risk analysis needs to be reviewed.
It is imperative to embed this approach into governance and decision-making processes. The plan can thus make its entrance into management committees, investment plans and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. It can also align with the commitments of the Paris Agreement, to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
As with any project, the success of the climate resilience plan depends partly on employee buy-in. This starts with clear communication of the objectives and expected benefits of the actions undertaken, whilst formalising best practices. To go further, the company can implement awareness campaigns or practical workshops.
Focus on Climate Fresk
At Manutan, we use Climate Fresk. These educational and collaborative workshops aim to raise awareness of climate issues so that each employee can take ownership of them and act accordingly. The format is fun, participatory and creative, inviting everyone to reconstruct the cause-and-effect links of climate change and explore possible solutions.
The question is therefore no longer whether the company will be affected by climate change, but when and how it will prepare for it. Beyond risk management, it's an opportunity to build a more agile and competitive organisation, in favour of sustainable development.
