Businesses see climate change as 'physical risk' to operations

Leigh Stringer in edie.net: Seventy percent of companies believe that climate change has the potential to affect their revenue significantly, according to research published today by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Accenture.  The CDP said this risk from climate change is intensified by a "chasm between the sustainable business practices of multinational corporations and their suppliers".

The research, Reducing risk and driving business value, is based on information from 2,415 companies, including 2,363 suppliers and 52 major purchasing organisations who are CDP Supply Chain program members.

Members include Dell, L'Oreal and Walmart and represent a combined spending power of around $1tn (£631bn).

Climate change presents near-term risks to businesses, according to the report. 51% of the risks that disclosing companies associate with drought or extreme rain are already having an adverse effect on company operations, or are expected to within five years, say those businesses.

Additionally, the destructive nature of extreme weather is a likely catalyst for company action on climate change, with physical climate risk identified in the report as a greater driver of investment than climate policy....

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