Helping businesses adapt to climate change

Ryan Schuchard and Joyce Wong of the consulting firm BSR weigh in at Climate Biz: As climate change sets in, its impacts -- increasing severity of storms and weather disasters, receding snow and rivers, advancing deserts, and more frequent landslides and floods -- will test companies' ability to effectively deliver high-quality products and services.

In response, BSR is launching a series of briefs to illustrate how these changes will affect each industry and what current adaptation practices look like, beginning an examination of the food, beverage, and agriculture sector (PDF).

Some effects of climate change will be familiar, such as crop failures and ensuing price shocks, but over the next several years, they will happen with more frequency and with even higher insurance costs. Beyond direct business impacts, companies will also need to understand how climate change will affect their most vulnerable stakeholders -- the poor, citizens of developing countries, and women -- who will face increasing risks due to drought, disease vectors, and the perils of migration.

The good news is that many resources on business adaptation to climate change are already available (see end of article). McKinsey & Company developed a cost curve for adaptation (PDF), for example, which highlights different adaptation options and shows that investment paybacks can be short. Also, companies do not need to choose between adapting to climate change and helping to mitigate it; the distinction between these two is rarely clear and we should do both together.

There are also tools that translate state-of-the-art climate monitoring, prediction, and imagery into practical information to help companies improve their relevant governance and decision-making processes. These tools include: the Climate Administration Knowledge Exchange (CAKE), Google Earth Engine, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center, and weADAPT. Companies can also take advantage of new market opportunities by providing solutions to enable effective adaptation…

In April 2009 -- Pat Troal, a Fargo, ND engineer marks a stake being used to measure the height of the river in the Edgewood neighborhood in Fargo. The city is measuring the height of the Red River to ensure that that existing levees are high enough to protect the city. Photo by Patsy Lynch/FEMA